


We Shall Find Peace

by Vampiyaa



Series: Forever and More [9]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Delusions, F/M, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Insanity, Mental Institutions, Mystery, Nurses, Romance, Smut, Wall Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-22
Updated: 2014-06-28
Packaged: 2018-02-05 19:47:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 21,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1830094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vampiyaa/pseuds/Vampiyaa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eleven/Rose AU; Part Eleven of the Forever and More series. He was just a madman in an asylum who thought he was an adventurer in a time-travelling police box, a free man able to roam and run as he pleased. Turns out the blonde nurse he mistook for an angel will make him realise he can be free; he can run, with her, and find peace.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prison

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Eleventh Doctor wakes up in an asylum and mistakes a blonde nurse named Rose for an angel.

Chapter 1  
Prison

He woke up and all he knew for certain was that he was cold.

Freezing, really. The temperature had to be at least… at least… well, that was strange. Why couldn’t he tell the temperature, down to the last degree? Something must be affecting his Time Lord senses. Maybe something in the room he was in? Speaking of that, where the hell was he? He sat up, blinking groggily and trying to sit up. His stomach churned immediately at the motion and he rolled over, grabbing the conveniently located bucket from the floor and throwing up the contents of his stomach over the iron bed frame. Once he was finished he backed away, gasping for air and grimacing at the foul taste in his mouth. What the hell? Whoever it was that was keeping him here would have had to slip him an explosively powerful drug to get him to vomit like he was some… some human or something! Sniffing and shuddering, he realised that he was in a small room — too small in his opinion, about five metres by six — and that he was dressed in the skimpiest hospital gown ever invented. Another thing— he was handcuffed to the bedpost. 

“Magnificent,” he muttered delicately, giving it a useless rattle. 

He examined the room with great care— any detail could be crucial. Unfortunately, all he saw were a heap of blankets, a rather clean looking sink and a metal toilet. There was a door at the far end of the room, locked from both the inside and the outside (which was redundant in his opinion) with fencing on the window, and provided no means of escape whatsoever. So he did the next best thing: he yelled.

“OI, YOU LOT, ALIENS!” he shouted, rattling his handcuff again as he craned his neck to try and see through the fenced-up window the exact same length and width of a standard piece of paper. “I’M THE DOCTOR, I’LL HAVE YOU KNOW!” He paused for a moment. “YOU PROBABLY ALREADY KNEW THAT THOUGH! WHERE AM I? WHO ARE YOU? WHERE ARE YOU KEEPING ME, AND WHERE ARE MY COMPANIONS?” He waited another second or two. “AND IT’S BLOODY COLD IN HERE!”

He felt momentarily triumphant when a wrinkled green eye peered through the fencing and the sound of the door unlocking met his ears. A plump, almost kind-faced older lady entered, a younger man with a goatee and moustache in her wake looking skittish as an Akren hare. Both of them were dressed as nurses— looked human, although appearance could be easily changed. 

“What are you shoutin’ about now, John?” said the woman kindly, voice high in pitch. She spotted the bucket of sick and gasped, “Oh, you’ve gotten sick! Well, your meds’ll do that, won’t they dear?”

“Who the hell are you?” he demanded, taking as defensive a stance as he could while dressed like a patient and chained. Well, cuffed. “Why’re you keeping me here? What species are you?”

“Oh dear, you’ve forgotten again,” said the older woman, looking put out. 

The man behind her just looked annoyed. “What is that, the sixth time in three months?”

“Shush, you,” fussed the lady.

“You listen to me, whoever you are!” he said, giving them his best Oncoming Storm face and trying not to look confused when they didn’t react in the slightest. Usually that sent aliens bolting. “Let me out of here this instant! Give me back my sonic, and my ship!” 

“Poor lamb,” cooed the woman. Placing a hand on her chest, she said earnestly, “I’m Sharon. Remember?”

The Doctor shook his head. “Mental,” the man muttered. “Look mate, my name’s House. We’ve met, remember? We’re your _nurses_?”

“Nurses?” he spluttered. “What on _Earth_ would I need nurses for?”

“God, I’m sick o’ this,” said House. Hands on his hips and ignoring Sharon’s protests, he snapped, “You’re not a bloody Time Lord or whatever you called it— you’re a human. We’re all human. You don’t have a ship, or a ‘sonic’, whatever the hell that is. We didn’t kidnap you and you’re name’s not the Doctor— it’s John Smith. You’re in the loony bin, mate, and have been for five years.”

Things go a bit blurry after that, and he wasn’t sure whether or not his recollection of trying to attack House was a dream. The former seemed more likely, so he went with that one. 

*

The next time the Doctor woke up, he wasn’t cold. Unfortunately he was also in what looked unpleasantly like a padded room, and he was wrapped in what was probably not an uncomfortably tight blanket. 

The room was dimly lit with one of those industrial, ‘ecosystem friendly’ type lightbulbs, which made him wonder if this really was Earth and not just some elaborate hoax done by aliens. Still, the latter seemed the most obvious— what with House’s blabbity-blab about him being human and having been crazy for five years and all that silly piffle. He specifically knew where he came from— the planet Gallifrey, located in the constellation of Kasterborous, on the Continent of Wild Endeavour near the Mountains of Solace and Solitude. He was from the House of Lungbarrow, graduated the Academy as a Prydonian and took off in his type-40 TARDIS with his granddaughter Susan. And he was a _Time Lord_ , by Rassilon, not a human no matter how much he looked it! He had two hearts and a respiratory bypass and the ability to regenerate, and while he may be on his last body, he wasn’t going to waste it sitting around in this fake facility! 

The Doctor started to wriggle the way Harry Houdini had taught him once, manoeuvring himself expertly to try and regain the use of (and feeling in) his arms. The straightjacket was halfway up his chest when the padded door swung open again and Sharon came tottering in. Her nurse clothes were forsaken for a shapeless pink cocktail dress, but she was nonetheless motherly as she yanked it back on gently, tutting her disapproval.

“Naughty Johnny,” she chastised. “You’ve pulled that trick before— it’s just lucky I was on my way home and spotted you in time.”

“Listen to me, you giant Zaal balloon,” the Doctor replied irritably, glaring another Oncoming Storm face at her. “Let me the hell out of here now and maybe I won’t trap you all in the Howling.” 

All he received for his efforts was a light smack on the forehead, like he was some kind of dog getting punished for stealing scraps off the table. “Don’t talk to your nurse that way,” she said. He noted that when she was upset, her mouth pressed into a thin line. “You should thank me for getting you back in your jacket before you got into more trouble. You’re already in here for the rest of tonight and tomorrow, you know. Gave House a nasty scratch when you attacked him.”

“That…” he swallowed, “that wasn’t a dream?”

Sharon looked at him with pity, as though she knew exactly how upset he was feeling. “No dear, it wasn’t.” Standing up properly and smoothing out her dress, she gave him a warm smile he felt he didn’t deserve and said, “See you tomorrow, Johnny,” and closed the door behind her.

The Doctor was left to his own devices, trembling in horror inside the straightjacket and staring wide-eyed at a housefly climbing one of the cushions on the floor. He, whose name was the universal definition of _helping_ people, not harming, had honestly attacked someone, even if that someone was holding him in this cell and trying to convince him he was crazy. What sort of drugs were they giving him, anyway, to have him fly off the handle like that? Time Lords had a built-in resistance to any sort of violence except when it came to self-defence or the defence of others. Whoever was keeping him here must have suppressed it. 

The Doctor relaxed for a moment, since if his theory was true then it really wasn’t his fault, and started to wriggle out of his jacket again. It took less time than before, since Sharon hadn’t pulled it down properly, and once he was out he scrambled up as best he could with the floor being like that of a bounce house, stumbling over to the equally padded door— which of course had no handle. He examined the seam, seeing if he could somehow jiggle the lock open. Unfortunately the lock was one that required a key, from what he could see, and since there was nothing at all in the room and they’d taken his sonic screwdriver, the Doctor couldn’t see any way of getting out of here.

So he resolved to do the only thing he could— he armed himself with the straightjacket in case he had to defend himself and waited until somebody arrived. 

*

“Good morning, Johnny,” trilled Sharon’s high-pitched voice, jerking him out of his restless sleep against the wall. “Medication time. Oh, look at you, you got out of your jacket _again_.”

The door was only a crack open and light was spilling in, momentarily blinding him, but it was enough to snap him out of his groggy state and remember his plan from the previous night. The Doctor scrambled up from his post and made a beeline for the source of the light, but a pair of hands grabbed his arms— those, he was certain by the annoyed grunt, of House. 

“Don’t be stupid, John,” House growled in his ear. “Or you’ll get more than just another day of solitary confinement.” 

“Let me go, _now_ ,” the Doctor snapped, trying to rip himself from House’s grip. 

“Johnny, you sit still now and take your medicine,” said Sharon sharply, rattling the small plastic cup of pills in his face. 

“No,” he snapped, struggling against House’s grip as Sharon approached him with the pills. “Let me go!” 

“Hold him down, House,” Sharon said, voice thick with almost motherly exasperation. “Johnny, stop struggling, or you’ll be in here ‘til the end of the week.”

“MY NAME’S NOT JOHN!” the Doctor yelled, aiming a kick in the direction of House’s male areas. “IT’S THE DOCTOR!” 

“Week it is, then,” House grumbled, forcing the Doctor against the wall and pinning him down with his knees.

Sharon approached, forcing his mouth open and shoving, along with three stubby, painted fingers, two sour tasting pills down his throat. He tried to choke them back up, but ultimately his gag reflex won and he swallowed them, coughing against the unpleasant false sensation of the pills getting stuck in his oesophagus. 

“There you go, Johnny,” Sharon said, releasing his face and giving his cheek a gentle pat. “Not so bad, was it?”

“Better not give us this much trouble this evening,” House grunted, releasing the Doctor and watching him stumble and fall back into his corner. “You do this every few weeks, you know.”

“You’re not gonna convince me I’m crazy,” the Doctor gasped around the pills, still sticking to the inside of his throat. 

“Here, dear,” Sharon said, ignoring his statement and handing him a bottle of Earth-brand water, pre-opened.

He swallowed down his urge to both thank her and swear at her, taking the bottle and sniffing it to see if he could detect any poison or drugs— although that would be redundant, since they’d just forced medication down his throat, and had no reason to have hidden it in a drink. With a reluctant nod in Sharon’s direction, he swallowed down several mouthfuls of water, grateful when the pain from the pills subsided when the water washed them down. 

“Good boy,” Sharon said sweetly. “Breakfast is here. Eat up— you’re a stick. We won’t put you back in your jacket if you eat it all.”

“Try not to throw it against the walls,” House added irritably, and with that he and Sharon left, leaving behind a tray of greyish-looking scrambled eggs and a fruit cup.

The Doctor’s stomach grumbled at the sight of it, and as much as he wanted to lob it at the walls just to piss off and inconvenience the ever-annoying House, he needed his strength if he was ever going to escape. So, with a grimace, he tucked into his breakfast. Once he was finished, he put the tray next to the door and tried to think up a new plan. He’d let them think he was cooperating, so they’d let him out of solitary… although he’d have to wait a week, apparently.

Suddenly his eyes began to grow heavy, making him panic— had they really actually drugged the water, or his food? Maybe it was just his meds. That was his last serious thought before he slumped against the wall, mentally remarking about how the floor was a giant pillow. 

*

Three days into his week of solitary confinement felt like a mere hour. His meds kept him groggy and either half-asleep or fully unconscious, making him feel doped and stupid. The Doctor’s only coherent thought throughout the duration was that this was probably their endgame— make him too stupid to fight back. This theory was forgotten in the next split second, replaced by childish awe when the lights flickered on and a sluggish murmur of, “Pretty…” tumbled from his mouth. The meds allowed him a few moments of moderate coherency to eat sometimes, and whenever Sharon or another faceless nurse came in to give him his meds, he was too sleepy to remember to try and reject it.

In the evening of the fourth day, the door opened as usual. The Doctor was lying on his side at the far end of the room, facing the wall, not sleeping but not quite awake at the same time. The nurse stepped into the room almost silently, so he didn’t notice them until whomever it was placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Mr. Smith?” a gentle, female, southern-London accent said. “Are you awake?”

“Hmm,” he managed to hum out, letting her turn him over onto his back. In the dim lighting he got a good look at the new nurse’s face, and in his doped haze he widened his eyes. Curls of lovely blonde hair tumbled around her face and dark, thick lashes framed her warm, chocolate eyes. “Ooh…” he breathed, reaching a hand clumsily in a newfound need to touch her. His thumb skimmed the apple of her cheek. “Are you an angel?” 

She smiled down at him, cheeks plumping and eyes sparkling. “No, I’m not an angel.” She held up a cup, which he frowned at. “I’ve got your meds.”

“Don’t want t’meds,” he murmured, trying to sit up. 

Her face went out of the range of his vision, and he opened his mouth to complain but her hands slipped underneath him, pushing up his back and then keeping him propped up in a sitting position by using her own body. He hummed and snuggled into her, craving contact that didn’t include fingers shoved down his throat and hands restraining him. “What are you on?”

“Dunno,” he mumbled, trying to gather his thoughts and having a fleeting moment of coherency where he remarked that she smelled like roses, vanilla and time. “Dun like it though.”

“Hold on a mo’, gonna check your chart,” she murmured softly, hands gently pushing him up again. 

The Doctor mumbled protests as she propped him up on the wall instead, immediately missing the little warmth he’d only gotten a taste of. He forced his eyes open to fully see her, taking in a petite woman in her twenties flipping through a chart, with the loveliest of bodies covered by the ugliest of nurse scrubs. He had a moment of amusement when he attempted to picture her in something more flattering, and the first thought that entered his mind was her donning not a stitch. Ooh, he was a pervert now.

“Why on Earth are you on pimozide?” she mumbled confusedly from the end of the room. “That’s far too strong.”

“S’what it is,” the Doctor mumbled. “Yep. Comp’etely.” 

“I’ll have to get Kovarian on that,” she said quietly, glancing between him and the cup. “You’ve still got to take these, though.”

“No…” he whimpered, shaking his head and nearly unbalancing himself. “Don’t wanna.”

“You have to, sweetheart,” she said, sounding truly regretful as she approached him with the cup and the bottle of water. “Just until I get in touch with the Head of Department so they can change your meds, ‘kay? Just for a couple more days, I promise.”

She was close to him again, and even though he was vaguely aware his face was screwed up in devastation he leaned forward and buried his face in her shoulder, lifting his arms up and sluggishly wrapping them around her waist. She didn’t push him away, and something inside him sobbed with gratefulness. “C’n I know your name?” he asked earnestly.

Her chuckling hum made warm breath hit his neck. “How about a compromise— I’ll tell you my name when you get your new meds, yeah? Provided you take these ‘til then.” She rattled the cup full of pills again.

In his doped state, that sounded like a magnificent idea. He obediently opened his mouth and let her gently place the pills on his tongue, before holding the bottle up to his mouth and giving him three generous mouthfuls of water, enough to make him forget he’d even taken pills in the first place. She whispered that she’d be right back, but he barely heard her, and he had absolutely no idea how long she was gone (or, if he was being frank, that she’d been gone at all) but however promptly or non-, she returned with something big and blanket-like and draped it over his form, which had since slumped back into its original place only facing outward. 

“S’at?” he asked as best he could, trying and failing to open his eyes. 

“Blanket,” she said kindly, tucking him into it properly. “Keeps you warm, yeah?” 

“Know that, silly angel,” he hummed fondly. “G’night.”

Her laugh and her responding, “Goodnight, Mr. Smith. See you tomorrow morning,” was the last thing he heard before the tide of exhaustion dragged him back into the sea again.

*

He waited out his sentence in awful sleepiness. Being one hundred per cent Time Lord — he didn’t care what those goddamn nurses said — spending hours upon hours of horrid stupidity, barely able to keep his eyes open, was hell and then some. The only instances of peace were during the moments between medications, just before he got new pills and when the first ones were starting to wear off. The kind blonde angel-nurse was there, at first only in the mornings— until, of course, Sharon, House and some other nameless nurse got the hint that he’d only cooperate — and not try to bite them — if she was the one handling him. Then she started to come every day, and he’d prolong taking the pills as long as possible by attempting to talk to her, ask her questions. Most of the stuff out of his mouth was sluggish gibberish, and she’d always silence him with a gentle hand through his hair and a promise that she was working on changing his meds. Since he could barely talk without falling asleep halfway through a sentence, she propped him up on her shoulder and helped him eat the mystery food that she brought for him. He noted at one time of brief, magnificent clarity that the food they served tasted like the underside of a Llamaxi blood leech, and she giggled (he’d thought to himself that that’s what should be classified as ‘music of angels’) and asked him what that was. He jumped at the chance to go off on a scientific lecture, but pouted to himself when he couldn’t seem to gain control of his tongue. 

Once, because he ate his whole meal by himself and took his meds without complaint, she slipped him a wrapped piece of gum. “S’at?” he’d asked, frowning at the thing in his hand.

“A treat,” she told him. “Good for your teeth, too. It’s spearmint.”

“Venusian spearmint?”

“No, just spearmint,” she smiled. “Reckon it’d be nice to taste somethin’ other than that leech thing you were talkin’ about.”

“Llamaxi blood leech?” he suggested.

“Yep, that was it.”

The Doctor managed to stay awake long enough for the gum to lose its flavour— Rose hung round to make sure he didn’t fall asleep chewing it and choke, making him spit it out when he was done. As the sleepy haze took over him again, he smacked his tongue happily at the lovely taste and fell asleep dreaming of lying with her in a field of mint plants. 

At the end of the week, nearing medication time when he was staring at a spider crawling over the lightbulb with the utmost interest, the angel came back into his cell, holding a tray and a cup of pills and donning a brilliant smile on her face. “Good morning,” she said excitedly, and before he could answer — however unintelligibly — she burst out, “Got your new meds. You’re on chlorpromazine now. S’weaker and won’t make you all wonky.”

“Good,” he mumbled, not making any motion to sit up so that she’d come over to do it herself, and he’d have an excuse to get her to touch him again. 

She did just that, lifting him up again and making no comment when he lolled his head against the pillow of her breasts. “Go on then, Mister. Eat up.”

“Yes, Miss Angel,” he mumbled, reaching for his fork. 

As he carefully lifted what looked like cranberries to his mouth, she said, mouth right next to his ear, “D’you remember the promise I made you at the beginning of the week?”

“No,” he said around a mouthful. 

“Said I’d tell you my name if you took all your old meds ‘til you got these new ones.” 

She rattled the cup and he nodded, remembering hazily. “Can I know now?”

“Rose,” she told him.

“Rose the angel,” he hummed happily, forsaking his eggs so he could grin stupidly. “Magnificent.”

“Glad you think so,” she chuckled. “Now eat, Mister. You’re outta here this afternoon, yeah?”

“No more s’eeping in a giant pillow?” he asked hopefully.

“No more sleepin’ in a giant pillow,” Rose grinned.

The Doctor hummed happily— maybe now he’d be able to see her beyond the confines of his ‘giant pillow’. He ate his whole meal without complaint, and even reached for the pills himself just to prove he could. When she bid him goodbye until nighttime, he responded with a happy, “Buh-bye, Rose the angel.”

The remnants of his old medication made him slip back into fitful sleep, but when he woke up, he was lucid and felt like he’d slept enough to last him for another thousand years. Sitting up, he rubbed at his eyes and saw the thing that had woken him— a delighted-looking Sharon, who was the last person he wanted to see. 

“Hello, Johnny,” she cooed.

“Zaal balloon,” he replied dismissively.

She’d apparently chosen to ignore the insult (if she understood it) and instead focus on his blank tone, because she beamed at him. “Solitary’s over. You can come out and see the other patients now, get yourself cleaned up an’ all. You’ll get your meds at lunchtime, which is in about an hour, yeah?”

“Yep,” he muttered. The quicker he was out of solitary confinement, the quicker he’d get to finding out a way out of here, getting back to his TARDIS and/or discovering who it was that was keeping him here in the first place. And maybe see Rose again. He cringed, hating how stupid he’d sounded around her— angels didn’t exist, nor was she one (although not a far cry from it) and hoped that if and when he did see her again, he’d be able to tell her everything about Llamaxi blood leeches down to their atomic structure. Maybe he’d take her with him travelling too, if his Ponds didn’t mind.

Sharon let him use one of the showers, and he gratefully washed away a week’s worth of sweat and grime, muttering to himself about how _real_ Earth asylums were obligated to let patients shower more often than once per bloody week. To his utter delight, Sharon — though she didn’t give him back his sonic — handed him his jacket, braces, trousers and bowtie, although upon further investigation he discovered his jacket and trousers had been tampered with, since his pockets on both garments were empty and no longer dimensionally transcendental. 

He followed another nurse down a long metal corridor, with doors similar to the one he’d been trapped behind for a week. Through the small 8 x 11 window he caught glimpses of faces, dirty and either wide-eyed or monotone, and the Doctor wondered if they were just part of the act or if they were really prisoners here as well— if the latter was the case, then he’d have to bring them with him when he escaped. 

The nurse led him into a large room, which appeared to be some kind of activity room. There was a pool table in the corner along with a locked piano and a cracked television set — still functional, since one of the patients seemed to be watching the football match despite the fracture — a table where a couple of people were playing cards, and several chairs. A counter behind which several other nurses were bustling sat at the back of the room.

“Doctor, m’boy!” boomed an older man’s voice from the corner, startling several of the patients. “Never thought I’d see you again!”

The Doctor turned to see a balding man in his fifties walking towards him a beam on his face. Relieved that someone had _finally_ called him something other than ‘Mr. Smith’ or, Rassilon forbid, ‘Johnny’, he said, “Do I know you?” 

“S’me, Brian,” said the man good-naturedly, seizing his hand and giving it a tight squeeze. “Go on, then, you can’t have forgotten again!”

The Doctor bit back the annoyed scowl— another effing ruse to get him to think he’d ‘forgotten’ what reality was. “Sorry.”

“S’all right, mate, ya got your pal Brian to remind you,” Brian beamed, clapping him on the back. “How about a tour, eh?”

“Sure,” the Doctor said reluctantly. As much as he wanted to little his interaction with Brian, learning what was where would be crucial.

“All right-y then, this is the main activity room, then, where we have group,” Brian began cheerily, sweeping his arms out dramatically before pointing out a window (padlocked, the Doctor noted). “Out there’s the yard. Unfortunately you were in solitary when we went out about an hour ago, so you’ll have to wait ‘til tomorrow to go outside. Down the hall is the cafeteria, and upstairs is the head honcho’s office — I’d recommend never goin’ up there, meself, ‘less you want to die painfully — and the basement is where all our rooms are, and the laundry room. And these are your new mates, Doctor, or old I should say,” he added with a chuckle, sweeping his hand out again to indicate the patients. 

The Doctor got a good look at a ginger-haired girl in the corner, who seemed to be chattering to herself, and his hearts did a samba. “She’s one of my—”

“Companions?” Brian interrupted with a chuckle. “You say that every time I give you this tour. That’s Amy Pond. Or ‘Prisoner Zero’, as we call her, ‘cos nobody seems to know how long she’s been here. She’s got this thing in her head, yeah, that’s she’s waitin’ for her ‘raggedy man’. Says that her ‘raggedy man’ showed up in her house when she was seven and promised to ‘be right back’. Mistook you as that raggedy bloke before, actually.” He then pointed to a dark-haired person slowly edging towards the chattering Amy. “That’s Rory. We share the same last name, ironically, so he thinks I’m his dad. He claims that he and Amy are supposed to be married, and that he went back all the way to Roman times to find her, only he ‘got stuck’ and waited for a thousand years to come back to her. ‘Course he’s never said two words to her, in reality.”

“I don’t belong here,” said the Doctor at once.

At once Brian grew dangerously quiet. “I didn’t say I was done.” The Doctor swallowed, nodding for him to continue since he was pretty sure that one of Brian’s problems was liking the sound of his own voice too much… and pummelling those who told him otherwise. “That’s ‘River Song’, as she calls herself,” he continued happily, as though nobody had interrupted him. Brian pointed to a frizzy haired, older woman who seemed to be eyeing everyone in the room as though expecting them to attack her. “Bloody nut job, her. Calls her cell ‘Stormcage’ and calls all of us the ‘Shade Proclamation’— no wait, _Shadow_ Proclamation, that was it. When she’s not trying to slit all of our throats with pens, she’s shoving us up against walls and snoggin’ the stuffing outta us.” Brian looked pleased. “Did that to you a couple o’ times, actually, an’ sent you into a right fit.”

“I don’t have fits,” said the Doctor at once, yet again making Brian upset. “Er, continue.”

“That bloke’s called Winston,” said Brian at once, pointing to an older man in the corner. “Actually thinks he’s Winston Churchill— don’t blame him, meself, since his speeches are excellent… when he’s not diving under the table at every loud noise and shouting ‘the Germans are bombing us!’ And that bloke we only know of as ‘the Gunslinger’— acts like the world’s a Western film. That’s Kate Stewart— her grandfather’s in the military…” 

Once the Doctor was completely certain Brian was finished, he added, “What about the nurses?”

“Well, there’s Sharon— right old dear, her,” said Brian, smiling wistfully. “Then there’s House, who’s got a stick up his bum — which is funny, ‘cos of that show _House_ , about that arsehole doctor named House — Clara and Solomon. An’ there’s two new ones; one’s called Mickey, I think, an’ he’s been here only a few months… can’t right remember the other’s name, but she’s a beauty and just showed up last week.”

“Rose,” the Doctor murmured. “Her name’s Rose. I remember,” he added, blushing when Brian gave him an odd look. “She’s my nurse, apparently.”

“Rose, then,” Brian said. “And then there’s Kovarian, the head of the department. Crazy bitch, her.”

“What’d she do?” he asked, frowning.

“Well for one thing, she’s the reason you got switched to the strong stuff, and the reason why it took so effing long to get new meds,” Brian said conversationally. “But that aside, she runs an airtight facility, here. Puts you in solitary if you so much as sneeze in her direction. She’s got Solomon as her bitch, actually— he practically worships her like she’s Queen Nefertiti or summat.”

“How did I get put in solitary again?” the Doctor said airily.

“Kovarian caught you trying to free Amy and Rory out of their cells when they were in solitary,” Brian said, with another good-natured chuckle and a pat on the shoulder. “Honestly, Doctor, what were you thinkin’?” 

“Dunno,” said the Doctor vaguely. An alarm sounded from the counter at the edge of the room, and everyone in the room immediately got up from their seats and started shuffling in a single file line towards the counter. “What’s going on?” 

“Meds, m’boy, meds,” Brian said, grabbing the sleeve of his coat and hauling him into line behind Rory. 

“Hi Dad,” said Rory vaguely.

“‘M not your dad,” Brian replied dismissively, keeping his attention on the Doctor. “Then it’s off to the cafeteria for lunch, mate. Think Sharon’s serving hamburgers today.”

Brian was forced to stop chattering when they finally reached the counter, and a sweet-looking, young brunette nurse smiled at him and handed the Doctor his meds with a, “Nice to see you again, Mr. Smith.”

He frowned at her, mostly for calling him ‘Mr. Smith’, and caught sight of her nametag. “Hello Clara,” he said aloud, tossing the pills back and swallowing them sans water. 

She looked thrilled. “You remember me?”

“You’re wearing a nametag, sweetheart,” said someone from behind her, and she flushed pink in remembrance and looked a bit disappointed.

The Doctor’s frown deepened, but before he could comment the chuckling Brian steered him away from the line. “She fancies you.”

“What?” 

“Clara. She fancies you.”

Despite knowing full well he hadn’t been here long enough for any nurses to fancy him, he grinned to himself, tugging on his lapels, ignoring Brian’s eye roll and saying, “Well I am brilliant.” 

“‘Course you are, then,” Brian snorted, leading him towards the stairs along with the rest of the shuffling crowd. “Come on then, Mr. Big Head.”

The Doctor scowled but obligingly followed Brian and the throng up the steps, led by two bulky, guard-like men into a small cafeteria, about the same size of the activity room. The patients lined themselves in front of a long counter, rather like those seen in school cafeterias, and Brian and the Doctor followed them, each taking a tray for himself. Nurses were acting as serving ladies too, a few of whom the Doctor recognised— Sharon was the first, followed by a still-grumpy House, a black man and a nurse he recognised as the one that had led him from his cell to the activity room.

“Hello Sharon,” Brian said, voice lascivious.

“Brian,” cooed Sharon, and the Doctor nearly hid behind his tray, choking down vomit. “Here you are, sweetheart— just how you like ‘em.”

“Thanks,” Brian grinned, as she handed him a plate with a mustard-covered hamburger on it.

“Good to see you, Johnny!” Sharon positively gushed when it was the Doctor’s turn, missing the sick look on his face.

“Zaal balloon,” he greeted impassively, reluctantly accepting a bare hamburger from her as well.

“Ah, she’s a dear,” Brian sighed, when they retreated to a table next to Rory, the Gunslinger and Winston.

“She’s a giant Zaal balloon,” the Doctor muttered, poking his hamburger as though expecting it to grow legs and scurry off, like on the nonsense planet Trfrgr. 

“You’ve said that before, but you never told me what it meant,” said Brian interestedly.

“Nothing,” he replied quickly, not wanting to send the older man into a fit by insulting his (sickening) fancy.

The Doctor pushed his hamburger away and listened to Brian chatter away about nonsense, eventually including the Gunslinger, Winston and Rory (provided the latter didn’t called him ‘Dad’ and stopped flicking his eyes in Amy’s direction). After a half hour of listening to drivel, the Doctor tuned it out and sat back, taking in the room carefully and committing every detail to memory as best he could before spotting something. His hearts leapt and lodged themselves side by side in his throat— the nurses were now all taking their own breaks at a special table situated in the corner of the room, positioned so that they could keep an eye on the patients at all times, and at the corner of the table, surrounded by Clara, Sharon, House, the black man and three other nurses, was Rose. She had thankfully forsaken those hideous standard scrubs, instead now wearing a white lab coat over a lovely office-like ensemble of a pale pink blouse and tight black skirt, and she was in mid-laugh at something Clara was telling her. 

“Stop staring,” Brian snickered, jerking him out of his reverie.

“Wasn’t staring,” he defended with a flush, tugging at his suspenders. “I don’t stare. Time Lord, me.”

“Right,” Brian grinned. “Well, what if I told you, _my Lord_ , that the lady you were just _starin’_ at is comin’ this way?”

The Doctor’s head snapped up, flushing crimson when he saw that Rose was in fact walking towards him, a brilliant smile on her face. Brian waved towards the other three to scoot over to the far end of the table, giving them privacy as Rose sat down next to him. 

“Hello,” she grinned, tongue between her teeth.

He was well aware of several things— his face was red, Brian was sniggering behind him, and the black man at the other table was frowning at him. “H-hello.” Why was he stammering?

“You should eat that, by the way,” Rose added, with a sideways glance at his now cold hamburger. “I know it’s awful and Sharon can’t cook for shit—” he chuckled despite himself, “— but you need to eat somethin’, Mr. Smith.”

“It’s Doctor, actually,” he corrected at once. 

She cocked her head to the side, and he blushed— damn it, why did he keep blushing? “Doctor who?”

Finally, something familiar. He smiled at her. “Just the Doctor.”

“The Doctor,” she repeated, eyes twinkling. “That’s an odd name.”

“I’m an odd bloke,” he shrugged, wagging his eyebrows. 

She laughed, making him straighten up almost triumphantly just as the black bloke from the nurse’s table scowled and called, “Oi, Rose— break’s over, let’s go!”

Rose sent the Doctor an apologetic look, missing the look of annoyance he sent in the other bloke’s direction, and said, “Sorry, I’ve gotta go. See you tonight.”

“Tonight?”

“Meds, remember?” she grinned, tongue at the corner of her mouth again.

He felt his cheeks tingeing pink and cursed himself in his mind— what was it about this woman that turned him into an awkward, blushing idiot? “Er, right.” As she sent him one last grin and started to walk away, he remembered something and called after her hastily, “Th-thank you!” 

She turned around and frowned confusedly at him. “For what?”

“Getting my meds changed.”

Her smile returned at once, lighting up her eyes. “You’re welcome.” 

Brian snorted, forcing the Doctor to tear his eyes away from her. “What?”

“This is the first time I’ve ever seen you remotely smitten with anyone,” Brian grinned, elbowing him in the ribs suggestively. 

“I’m not… that’s… you’re…” he spluttered, face flaming scarlet.

“I think you broke him, Dad,” Rory sniggered. 

“I’m not _smitten_ ,” the Doctor finally managed to say furiously, ignoring when Rory happily leaned over and snatched his untouched hamburger. “I’m a Time Lord. Time Lords don’t get _smitten_.”

“You are clearly besotted with the newest caretaker, Mr. Smith,” said Winston eloquently, sending Rory a disgusted look when he chomped down into the Doctor’s nicked hamburger. 

“Thank you for the valuable input, Winston,” Brian sighed.

“Oh, and I suppose you with your _unprecedented_ observational skills also noticed that Smith’s point of vision was directed unswervingly at her backside?” Winston argued.

“What?” Rory frowned confusedly with his mouth full.

“It was _not_!” defended the Doctor. 

As Brian and the Gunslinger burst into raucous laughter, gaining annoyed looks from some of the other patients and even a death glare from River, Rose turned her head over her shoulder as Mickey and the rest of the nurses started towards the door, a small smile blossoming over her face. “Looks like he’s adjustin’ again, yeah?”

“What, you mean the bloke who thinks he’s the Lord of Time or whatever he calls himself?” Mickey grumbled. 

“The Doctor, he said his name was,” Rose said, turning away from the laughing group and following Sharon and Clara into the hall. “You never told me about him, Micks.”

“That’s ‘cos he’s annoying. Every time ya think he’s separating from his fantasy world, he has some sort of episode and ends up forgetting everything all over again. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone into his cell only to have him demand where I’ve taken his ‘tar-diss’.”

“What the hell is that?” Rose raised an eyebrow.

“I have no clue,” Mickey said. “You’ve only been here a week, babe, an’ I know he’s taken a shine to ya, but I’ve been here a while. I’ve seen _the Doctor_ try the most outrageous shit to try and escape this place — genius shit, I’ll give him that — an’ I’ve seen him try to talk Prisoner Zero into ‘remembering their adventures’. Once he even threw a custard-covered fish finger at my head and told me to ‘let him out of here, you stupid alien!’” His tone grew mocking when he imitated the Doctor. “Trust me babe— this ain’t gonna last. He’s gonna be plotting an escape plan sooner or later.”

Rose frowned at the floor, pausing her walking and forcing Mickey to stop as well lest he leave her behind. “What’ve you been doing for his therapy to try and separate him from his fantasies?”

“Standard stuff, really,” Mickey shrugged.

The corner of her mouth quirked up and she resumed walking again. “Well, maybe we should try a more creative approach with him then, yeah?”

“You can give it a shot if you want, babe— ‘m done with him. And River Song. Did you know she tried to snog me, _again_? Why can’t the bloody woman keep her tongue in her mouth?”

Rose’s giggles echoed through the hall.

*

The remainder of the afternoon was spent in what Brian simply called ‘group’— the Doctor’s first impression of ‘group’ was that it was painfully _droll_ , since he spent the first hour listening to Kate sob about her cat, and the second listening to River rage about Stormcage and how if they didn’t let her out of here at once, Kovarian was going to come and murder them all, and other nonsense. After group was over everybody was led back to the cafeteria for dinner — a kind of lumpy meatloaf — served by a new round of nurses. He decided he’d had about enough when somebody accidentally knocked their knee into the table, making a loud banging noise and causing Winston to crash to the floor with his hands above his head, screaming; this prompted several other people to start panicking, Brian trying to rectify the situation by yelling ‘it’s okay’ over and over, River watching the chaos with an almost thrilled look on her face and Kate huddling in the corner wailing for her grandfather. 

Sharon eventually ran out and calmed everybody, and by then the Doctor had already slipped out during the bedlam, sneaking quietly through the halls to try and locate the stairs. He debated which way to go first— he itched to head to the ground floor and escape the asylum’s confines, but Brian had said upstairs was the ‘head honcho’s office, and if he headed up there he had a better chance of finding his sonic, his ship and the person responsible.

“I wouldn’t go up there, if I were you,” Rose’s voice said amusedly from behind him.

The Doctor’s hearts lodged in his throat and he whirled around in a panic, seeing her leaning provocatively against the side of the wall. “Er—”

“Relax,” Rose giggled, pushing herself off the wall and walking towards him. “I won’t report you. If you follow me to your room,” she added, cocking her head to the side.

As much as his instincts told him to take off towards where his ship might be, his peculiar desire to be in her company and not upset her won over. Grinning in what he hoped was a smooth way, he hopped over to her and extended his arm. “Lead the way, then.”

Rose grinned up at him, tongue in teeth again as she hooked her arm around his and pulled him towards the downward staircase instead. “So, why the sudden wanderlust?” 

“Oh, y’know… sightseeing,” he said airily, waving at the bleak grey walls.

“Right, ‘cos this place’s a real Costa Rica,” Rose snorted disbelievingly.

“The cobwebs in the corners of the ceiling are lovely this time of year,” the Doctor grinned, overly pleased when his comment made her laugh. 

“You think you’re so impressive,” she said.

“I am so impressive!” he replied, using his free hand to adjust his bowtie as though that finalised the matter.

“Prove it.” Before he could flush and wonder what ‘proving it’ implied, they arrived in the basement, where patients were shuffling into their rooms. “Which number’s yours?”

“I dunno,” he shrugged. “I’ve only been here a week.”

Even though her tone sounded sincere, he could tell she didn’t believe him. “That’s not what Sharon and the others told me.”

“Bet they’ve said I’ve been here for ages, and that I just keep forgetting ‘cause I’m bonkers,” the Doctor said bitterly.

“Well, I’ve heard something like that, yeah,” Rose said. He could just tell what she was doing— tiptoeing around the subject, trying to make him ‘see the truth’ without outright confronting him with it. If he didn’t like her company so much, he’d hate her for doing it. “I wouldn’t know though; I’ve only been here a week myself.”

He just couldn’t be angry, not when she was sending him that tongue-touched smile again. “ _There you are, Johnny_!” fumed Sharon’s voice from behind them, making Rose turn and the Doctor grimace. “Oh, you’re with Rose,” she added, a simpering smile curling over her face. “Well that’s all right then, dears. Headin’ off to bed?”

“Nah, just sightseeing,” he said lightly, holding back a triumphant grin when Rose giggled behind her hand. 

“It’s nearly nine, you know,” Sharon said knowingly, missing the friendly exchange. 

“Yes, Sharon,” sighed Rose. “What’s his room number?”

“Eleven,” Sharon said dismissively, catching sight of something in another room to her right and turning her attention to that with a, “Did you nick _another_ pen, Melody?” 

The Doctor entered his bedroom upon Rose’s steering, taking a good look around. It was pretty standard issue — there were two beds, although one was clearly vacant and one was unmade and messy (ooh, he had his very own room!) — a nightstand in the middle and a desk off to the right; all in all, rather barren and unlived in. He paused when he spotted something, frowning at the walls. There were three pieces of paper with words written in Circular Gallifreyan: ‘Theta Sigma’, ‘Arkytior’ and his true name. He gaped at them, utterly shocked— how could those be there? He didn’t remember writing them, and not only was he the only person who could write in Circular Gallifreyan, he was the only person in the universe who _knew_ his true name, let alone who could write it.

“What are these?” Rose cooed from beside him, leaving his astonishment unnoticed.

“It’s my people’s written language,” he mumbled, frowning at it. “Circular Gallifreyan.”

She stared up at him in wonder. “It’s a language? It’s so beautiful.”

“Is it?” 

He’d never thought of it as ‘beautiful’ before— the only thing he’d really regarded the language as was a pain in the arse in his Academy days. But she nodded, running her fingers over the charcoal over the ‘Arkytior’ one. “Yeah. Like clockwork or somethin’.” Hm, now that she mentioned it, maybe it really was lovely. “What do they mean?”

“That one says ‘Theta Sigma’,” the Doctor said, pointing to the first.

“Theta Sigma?” she repeated confusedly.

“My nickname from when I was in the Time Lord Academy,” he said, looking for signs of disbelief and finding nothing but awe. “That one says ‘Arkytior’, which, ironically, means ‘rose’ in High Gallifreyan—” her grin widened a little and he found he adored it, “— and that one spells my true name.”

“Your true name?” Rose said confusedly, eyes alight with amazement. “An’ what’s that?”

“Time Lords never reveal their true name, unless it’s to their spouse or they’re seconds away from death,” the Doctor explained, blushing slightly under her entranced expression but happy to go off on a lecture nonetheless. 

“Then what’s ‘Doctor’?” she asked.

“When Time Lords graduate the Academy, they choose a different title for themselves,” he told her, before realising something and frowning. “You don’t think anything I’m telling you is actually real, do you?”

The Doctor almost regretted saying it, since the magnificent look of marvel in her eyes died at once, but thankfully it was replaced by the gentlest smile he’d ever seen. “S’real to you. And it’s amazing.”

“Bedtime, everyone!” trilled Sharon’s voice from the hall, making them both jump. 

Rose laughed and reached into her pocket, pulling out a small container, in which were two pills, and a small bottle of water. “Eat up, or Sharon’ll do more than just startle us.”

He grimaced at them but obediently tossed them back, washing them down with a sip of water. She graciously left the water bottle on his desk and, after bidding him goodnight, shut the door behind her so that the only light in the room was that of the dim lamp on the nightstand. He smiled sappily where she’d disappeared, only to have expression slowly fall into a contemplative frown as he sank down on the bed. Rose seemed far too sincere to be an evil, manipulative alien trying to convince him he was crazy— as a matter of fact, she seemed to be doing the opposite by focusing solely on his sanity and steering the conversation strictly away from anything that suggested he wasn’t in his right mind. Maybe she was the only nurse that had no idea what was actually going on. In that case, he decided happily, stretching out on the bed and kicking off his plimsolls, he would only cooperate with her. And when he was out of here, he’d take her with him on the TARDIS, and he could tell her everything about himself just to see her eyes light up again.

*

The Doctor’s first official week of false institutionalisation was mostly spent in annoyance. Twice he tried talking to Amy and Rory, trying to reach beyond what mental damage the aliens had caused them, and twice Amy had gone into a fit and started sobbing for her raggedy man, and Rory had thought at one point that the Doctor’s motives were to send him back to Roman times and nearly attacked him with the nearest object (Winston’s notebook, heavy and filled with speeches no doubt). Eventually he gave up, deciding he’d get to them once he got back his TARDIS and his lab equipment. Meanwhile Brian chattered his ear off the whole time — the bloke was kind, but he loved the sound of his own voice more than the Doctor did, and _that_ was saying something — and group therapy was a pain every time, whether or not Sharon was asking the Doctor to share something about his troubles. He made absolutely certain that if she were ever to call on him, she’d regret it, and spent his time talking about how he just couldn’t seem to solve the Skasis Paradigm until even Brian, who’d previously been roaring, looked bored as well. She also encouraged him to meet weekly with the facility psychiatrist, which he steadfastly refused— he was already forced to ‘share his feelings’ with everybody else in his unit, and if he had a choice not to share with someone else he’d take it.

In mid-morning, the nurses ushered them all outside into a dingy, fenced-off area of the courtyard, which had nothing but a rusty basketball hoop with no net and a dirty bench situated directly under a beehive, so nobody went near it. 

What may even be worse than group was arts and crafts. _Arts and bloody crafts_. Everybody’s age in the asylum ranged from late twenties to (counting him) nearly a thousand, and they were sitting there doing _arts and crafts_ , making origami and houses out of Popsicle sticks, gluing them together with a kind of pungent glue that the Doctor saw more than one person sneak into their pockets to huff later. During that period, the Doctor asked for pieces of paper every time and drew words in Gallifreyan to give to Rose later.

Rose was about the only thing about the whole place that wasn’t mind-numbing or annoying. She’d greet him every morning and every night with his meds and he’d coax her into talking, managing to get her to stay longer and longer each day. At one point when she brought him his meds just before bed, she also slipped him a book. It was just a ragged, dusty old copy of _The Time Machine_ that she’d found underneath a cupboard, but he got a bit overexcited and may or may not have used that as an excuse to yank her into a giant hug that didn’t end for a full five minutes. And, despite having read it a million times (well, one million two thousand and twenty-four to be precise) and memorised it, he read it over and over again every night.

He tried various times to escape— every time Rose caught him, and every time he surrendered willingly and happily, until he was only escaping just so she’d have to leave the other patients to go and fetch him. It was a childish game, but this regeneration was as childish as it got, so Rassilon be damned, he was going to keep playing this game of hide-and-fetch whether or not it was silly. Once someone other than Rose had almost caught him, and he’d been about to hide when Rose grabbed his hand, whispered, “Run,” and took off with him down the hall, their laughter getting intermingled. She was always there at lunchtimes and chose to sat with him instead of with the other nurses (much to Mickey’s chagrin, although that had less to do with Rose and more to do with the fact that he clearly didn’t like the Doctor, for some reason) but didn’t oversee group or ‘outdoor time’ as Brian called it.

She did, however, oversee arts and crafts every afternoon after the first week. The Doctor had been slumped back in his seat with boredom watching Rory sniggering at Brian’s wobbly, dripping stick man (they were doing watercolours) when Rose’s hand slipped over his shoulder and her voice said amusedly, “Y’know, to paint, y’need a paintbrush in your hand.”

He started, jumping high enough to make Rory, Brian and even Winston snicker. “Er, right,” he said embarrassedly, blushing scarlet and reluctantly reaching for a fine-tipped paintbrush. 

“What’re you gonna paint?” she asked, wedging herself between him and Amy, who was idly painting a near unintelligible doodle of what looked a bit like a messy haired, ruffled bloke. 

“Dunno,” he shrugged, looking up at her. It was a lie— he wanted to paint her as she looked now, the sunlight spilling from the window making the skin of her face glow slightly white, eyes half-mast and full of that signature compassionate look, mouth curled up in a gentle smile — no wonder his doped up self had mistook her for an angel — but he was pretty certain that would come off as odd. “Suggest something.”

She bit her lip contemplatively, and his eyes drifted towards it for some reason. “Paint me… I dunno, a butterfly?”

“Right-o,” the Doctor said at once, grabbing a palette of watercolours and setting out to paint her the best alien butterfly that he could. 

He wasn’t even certain if this regeneration could draw or paint at all — he vaguely remembered his last regeneration, while liking himself too much, had been skilled with a pencil — but he wielded his paintbrush as skilfully as he would his sonic, carefully outlining the shape of a bright gold, transparent Selketi flutterer. He discovered that yes, he was a good artist— magnificent, actually, since his hand swept over the page like he’d been doing it all his lives, making it so detailed the transparency of its wings was visible even without a background. Rose had to circle around the room while he was painting to see to the other patients, but the moment he finished and leaned back, she was back by his side in an instant.

“S’gorgeous,” she murmured, far too close to his ear. “What’s its story?”

“It’s a thahab flutterer from the planet Selket,” he explained quietly, resisting the urge to turn his head towards hers. “They’re considered holy spirits of people that’ve died, and reside only in the oases scattered over the planet. Well, not _only_.”

“Where else?”

“I’ve got a few in the butterfly room in the TARDIS. My ship,” he elaborated at her look of confusion. 

“You have a ship?” she smiled at him. “Like, a spaceship?” 

“Time-and-spaceship, actually,” the Doctor grinned. 

“A time machine that can travel through space too and has a room with only butterflies in it?” Rose said. The look of wonder in her eyes was back— he wanted to paint that too. 

“The TARDIS has lots of rooms with only one thing in it. There’s a banana tree room, a lightbulb room, a jam room and a toaster room too.”

“Paint it.”

He raised an eyebrow at her. “Paint the toaster room?”

She laughed. “No, the butterfly room. Paint all the species in there.”

The Doctor knew there were thousands of species collected from all over the universe in there, but since he could only remember a few of them (probably because of his meds) he neglected to tell her this and set to work at once, starting first on the grassy field and simulated blue sky in the butterfly room before starting on the butterflies, explaining each and every one’s origin whenever he finished one. Brian had only been half-listening to what the Doctor had been doing, mostly smirking over how he was fawning over Rose, but he soon caught sight of his nearly finished painting and gaped at it before ushering everybody else to gawk as well. 

After a brief half hour, his first painting was finished and other people were requesting paintings as well. Rose seemed delighted by it, and encouraged him to do it— which, beside the fact that it made it look like he was participating, was the only reason he did it in the first place. That day, the Doctor finished Brian’s requested painting first — which of all things was of dinosaurs on a spaceship, for lack of any better idea — and ended up taking on more requests. 

Two months passed and his time was consumed with drawing and painting. Winston had requested a portrait of himself giving ‘a grandiose discourse before all of London’, while Amy’s was of her vivid description of the ‘raggedy man’ (who looked suspiciously like him) Rory back in Roman times as a gladiator and the Gunslinger in a Western desert town, which he named ‘Mercy’ and proudly announced that he was its protector from now on. River was the only one who stayed quiet, and when he’d asked her if she wanted something, she told him quite specifically, “I’m gonna murder you, bury you, dig you up again and put your muddy arse on display in a museum,” so he drew her a quick sketch of her as an archaeologist, because that was the closest thing he could come up with that was remotely like her ‘suggestion’ without making it too graphic and making the nurses think he had murderous thoughts. 

At Rose’s request he also sketched and painted scenes of Gallifrey, Time Lords in their Prydonian and highborn attire, his TARDIS console room and exterior (“Bigger on the inside!” she’d exclaimed, pleasing him to no end… and then she burst into laughter when she discovered the TARDIS was stuck in ‘police box mode’) as many planets as he could think of, and all of the faces of his incarnations save for one.

And he did dozens of Rose.

At first it was just a hasty doodle of her as an angel (their inside joke, meant to make her smile) but she was inspiration incarnate, so ideas kept coming. Rose in a Victorian era gown, hair up like a governess; Rose in a brilliantly pink dungaree dress — she’d liked that one especially, asking how he knew she loved pink. He couldn’t of anything but, “It suits you.” — Rose in a Union Jack shirt, of all things; Rose in mid-laugh in the butterfly room; Rose with her tongue-in-teeth grin and compassionate smile; Rose with every outfit and hairstyle and backdrop that he could think of. She positively adored them — they _were_ rather lifelike, if he was being honest and not remotely braggy in the least — and constantly requested more, taking them all home with her. 

She ended up getting him a sketchbook and a little pocketsize case of pencils so he wouldn’t have to wait for arts and crafts to draw, and that was where he drew most of the sketches he wished to keep to himself. The face of his granddaughter, the war-born incarnation he’d tried so hard to forget, and more pictures of Rose. Only these ones were dangerous.

At first it was just things he was mildly fantasising about— her as his companion, the two of them having adventures, things like that. They grew in severity, starting to turn into scenes where they were doing slightly mushy stuff like holding hands or snuggling on the couch in the TARDIS. Then he woke up one night, tangled in the sheets, hair plastered to his face with sweat and an erection tenting his jimjams, and not only did his sketches turn into something that embarrassed even him, but the majority of his dreams did as well.

The Doctor tried not to feel ashamed, since the meds he was on had been suppressing his Time Lord superiority ever since he’d arrived, so having such _human responses_ wasn’t his fault, really. But he was pretty sure that his _human responses_ were triggered in turn by the fact that he was falling in love with her, which he had never done. Sure he’d loved before, but never _loved_ , especially after the Time War. Hell, he hadn’t even had any sentient contact besides the TARDIS for a full year after he’d destroyed Gallifrey, until he’d healed a little from the pain of the Time War. Wait…

How _had_ he healed from the Time War? 

*

Mickey, after listening to Rose talk about nothing but John Smith — a.k.a. _the Doctor_ — for a full two and a half months, had had enough. Stopping Rose mid-excited rant, he scowled at her over the counter and said, “What the _hell_ has gotten you so worked up over this nutter, Rose?”

“He’s not a nutter, Mickey,” said Rose sharply.

“ _Everyone_ in here’s a nutter— it’s an asylum!” Mickey said incredulously. “An’ he’s no different! He thinks we’re all aliens, that he’s the Lord of Time—”

“A Time Lord,” she corrected.

“— and that we’ve stolen his time machine and are trying to convince him he’s mad! That’s nutty to me, no matter how brilliant you think the shit he comes up with is.”

“His fantasies aren’t like normal ones, Micks,” Rose insisted. “They don’t focus on a single part in his life— his entire life is this fantastic story, and the detail is amazing. It’s like he’s really tellin’ the story of this extraordinary alien who saves the universe. They’re not fractured and he remembers almost everything about them.”

“So his psychosis is worse than other patients, so what?”

“I’m just sayin’,” Rose said earnestly. “Can you get me his file from Kovarian? I’d like to see what his real life was like before he was admitted.”

“Can’t,” Mickey said smoothly.

Rose frowned. “Why not?”

“I already tried months ago. Kovarian went against me. The government’s sealed his files.”

*

The Doctor continued to scribble in his sketchbook absent-mindedly, both so he’d have an excuse not to talk to Brian and to make the nurses think he was normal as ever, when in reality he was drowning in his own thoughts. Big chunks of his memory were missing— all of his ninth incarnation’s adventures and recovery post-Time War, a little bit of his tenth’s and even his current’s; the moment precisely when he’d made the decision to destroy his home planet; and silly things like why Ace decided to leave him and when he’d first met Liz Shaw. It worried him, to the point where he even kept his nightly conversation with Rose as brief as it had ever been— although that hadn’t stopped him from dreaming of her. Thankfully she wasn’t naked, writhing or touching him in any way, as his dreams about her usually went. Instead, he was old, scraggly and war-torn, holding what he knew to be a weapon of mass destruction but what looked like a simple clockwork box. 

He wouldn’t realise this until later, but the clockwork symbols on the box were the words ‘Bad Wolf’ and ‘Arkytior’ woven repeatedly across the expanse, never ending, eternal, forever. When he woke the next morning, a stupid beam blossomed on his face, and he threw himself out of bed, tangling in the sheets in his haste and crashing to the floor. Scrambling up without a care, the Doctor snatched his sketchbook off the desk and began scribbling furiously, a gleeful look on his face. 

Rose unlocked his door and entered the room, holding her usual morning paper cup of meds and a water bottle. “You’re awake.”

“Rose!” he gasped excitedly, throwing down his sketchbook and hurling his arms around her uncoordinatedly, picking her up and twirling her around. She gasped out in alarm, which quickly turned into an amused giggle. “Rose, I dreamed something magnificent!” 

“What was it?” she laughed, looking up at him when he set her down but kept his arms on her waist, beaming down at her.

“I didn’t destroy Gallifrey!” the Doctor said happily. “I remember now— I didn’t destroy it! And it’s all ‘cos of you, you magnificent woman!”

He yanked her into another impromptu hug, making her grunt when her chest hit his abruptly. “Er, how’s it ‘cos of me?” she asked, patting his shoulders and then obediently hugging him back when he showed no signs of letting go.

“‘Cos you were there!” he explained elatedly, humming into her neck and rocking them slightly. “You were there, only it wasn’t this you— it was another you. I tried to use a weapon called the Moment to destroy Gallifrey, only they’d told us it had a consciousness and its consciousness was you, Rose, and you stopped me!” 

“How’d I do that?” she grinned.

“You kept telling me ‘the Moment is coming’. You said that, Rose, that the moment to choose was coming, only in the end you gave me a better idea to save Gallifrey. I suspended it in a single moment in time and sent it to another universe!”

“That’s brilliant!” she said, laughing when he twirled her again.

“Yep!” he beamed. “You were the Moment— well, you also called yourself ‘Bad Wolf’ too.” 

Her smile fell off her face at once and she frowned, pulling back a bit and tilting her head. “Bad Wolf?”

“Yeppity,” he said eloquently, wondering what was the matter.

Rose’s expression turned from a frown to a gentle look of consideration. “Bad Wolf is what this place is called,” she told him softly.

He frowned as well, stepping back from her but keeping his hands on her shoulders. “What?”

“The name, ‘Bad Wolf’,” she explained slowly. “That’s what this institution is called. The Bad Wolf asylum.”

“It is?” he said, frown deepening. Confusion made him lower his head a little— in his few months of being here he’d never bothered learning the name of the asylum. Doubt crept over him, replacing the confusion; how could the name have leaked into his dreams if he didn’t know it? Unless… he really was psychotic.

“Doctor?” Rose said quietly, but he barely heard it. His mouth was dropped open in horror, his hands were shaking on her shoulders and his eyes were blown wide and locked on her neck. She tried giving him a shake and saying his name again, but he still didn’t respond— sensing that he was receding into his mind, she grabbed the sides of his face and forced him to look at her, saying, “ _Doctor, listen to me._ ”

The Doctor seemed to jerk from his stupor, eyes finally reaching hers but still round as coins, breathing coming out ragged. “Am I insane?” he whispered shakily.

“No,” she murmured. One hand rose up and carded through his hair, forehead pressing against his; he calmed down a little, tense muscles relaxing as he gravitated towards her, wrapping his arms around her again, this time for comfort and not in excitement. “No, sweetheart, you’re sick. Not mad.”

He could list off hundreds of elements and their atomic weight, he could recite the function of every section of the brain in several different species and he could name thousands of mental illnesses and their treatments— was it possible that all the scientific information was the product of his own ropey imagination? Was he _sick_ if he didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t? He tightened his grip Rose, inhaling deeply both to calm himself with her scent and to stave off tears of terror— the only thing he knew was true was her, so he was going to cling to her for dear life. 

He practically fell asleep on top of her, lost in the haze of her perfume and his own fear, and when Sharon came bustling over to check on them, he was forced to pull back and Rose, however reluctantly, had to leave to tend to the other patients. He took his meds, and for the first time it was because he wasn’t sure if he needed them or not as opposed to only taking them to shut the nurses up, and started to head out into the hall.

He jumped a little when River Song stepping in front of his doorway stopped him; her face was twitching and her arm was partially concealed behind her back. At once a feeling of caution started up in his gut, and he said in his quietest voice, “What’s the matter, River?” She didn’t answer, merely staring at him with an almost curious look. Her eyes were rimmed with a splotchy purplish-red colour, like someone had hit her in both eyes. “Is there anything I can help you with, River?” he tried again.

Her head twitched to the side, sending her frizzy hair bobbing slightly. “Kovarian raised me to kill you.”

A flood of fear, a flash of suicide blonde and a searing pain in his stomach rippling through his body like a gas-fuelled fire. Suddenly the only thing within his visual range was the dusty grey of the carpet and something warm and wet was pooling over his torso.

“ _DOCTOR_!” Rose’s voice shrieked, echoing strangely like it was bouncing around inside his head.

He started to smile — if there was ever a voice that he wanted in his mind, it was hers — but her voice was drowned out by what sounded like River’s reverberating screaming, coupled with Sharon’s worried wailing, House’s swearing and Rose’s shaking breath next to his ear. The grey of the carpet titled away from him, replaced by a blurry yellow colour.

“Doctor, s’gonna be all right.” Rose was crying. Why was she crying? “Sharon’s gone to get the paramedics, an’ you’re gonna be fine. Just… look at me, yeah?”

He swivelled his eyes obediently, trying to focus on her face, but despite his efforts his eyelids grew heavy almost at once and the only thing he saw was darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Beta: natural-blues**.  
>  A/N: Eleven's first chapter :) Can't believe the series is almost done. I just LOVE writing insanity/mind fics so yes, you will see more. This idea was stemmed from the feeling I always got watching Eleven; idk if it's just me but I feel like he's the most mentally unstable, even more so than Nine and HE was post-Time War. I did my best with the meds and the psych ward protocol; I've never been in one myself but I did plenty of research, so please forgive any discrepancies. The character of 'House' is the actor that did House's voice, so just imagine that guy :D and although Kovarian's the 'villain' in this story, we'll never actually see her. Also, the word 'thahab' is the Arabic word for 'gold'.  
> PS I've recently taken up drawing again :) and all I've mostly been doing is doodles for Forever and More. The only one I have uploaded is Ageless, Timeless, so if you guys want to take a look, here's the link: http://vampiyaa.tumblr.com/post/89421574956/because-even-though-one-is-madly-in-love-with-her


	2. Freedom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor accepts reality and Rose helps him adjust.

Chapter 2  
Freedom

When the Doctor woke up, his body felt like it was stuffed with lead and his fingers were curled around something warm and soft. He tried to move, since there was something pinching his arm and it was annoying, but all he could seem to move was his head. Grumbling about paralysis being a nuisance, he flicked open his eyes, frown melting into a smile when he spotted Rose— or, rather, the back of Rose’s head, as she was in deep conversation with a doctor. Naturally she’d be the one holding his hand at his bedside, his golden angel. Wait, at his bedside?

He lifted his head, frown having returned, and he quickly discovered the source of the pinching sensation on his arm, which was the tape holding down an IV needle. His frame was clad in another one of those _dreadful_ hospital gowns— although, he mused, since he was clearly in a hospital that was to be expected. Why was he in a hospital, anyway? Ah yes, River Song stabbed him. The moment he remembered just what had transpired, a dull throbbing started up in his abdomen, and he made a wincing sound that alerted Rose to his wakefulness. 

She whipped her golden head around and sent him a smile that was punctuated by her upward-arched eyebrows. “Hello.”

“Hello,” he hummed fondly, giving her hand a squeeze, which she reciprocated. 

“D’you remember what happened?” she asked, reaching her free hand up and carding it through his floppy hair the way he liked. 

“River Song,” he stated matter-of-factly.

Rose nodded. “She managed to get her hands on Solomon’s letter opener and smuggled it down with her.”

“She said Kovarian raised her to kill me,” the Doctor recited. 

Rose looked immensely angry for a moment, and he wondered if it was his fault before she said, “Kovarian nearly did kill you, actually. She gave the order to have River weaned off her anti-psychotics.” Even the Doctor had to frown at that. What on Earth had prompted the woman to take River off of her meds when she’d shown no improvement whatsoever— the exact opposite, in fact? “I’ve reported Kovarian to the board, if it makes you feel better,” Rose added.

“Thank you,” he said, although it was more for the reason that Kovarian’s stupidity might harm another patient rather than for revenge for his own condition. Another sear of pain in his abdomen made him wince, and he asked, “What was my prognosis?”

Her face was shadowed for a moment. “River got you in the spleen.” 

Oh, well that wasn’t too bad— he’d probably just needed a splenectomy, which wasn’t life threatening, although it would leave him a bit more susceptible to infection in the future. Except… 

“What’s the matter?” he said confusedly, frowning at her perturbed expression.

She sent him a look that he couldn’t quite put a name to — terrified? Sympathetic? — and gave his hair another loving comb as though trying to console him of something. “You went in v-fib halfway through the surgery… an’ you were clinically dead for two minutes.”

Shock flooded his systems, and with her help he sat up. “I… didn’t heal?”

Now the look in her eyes was definitely sympathetic. “No, sweetheart.”

Horror was welling in his chest, but there was still one thing he needed to confirm it. “My x-rays,” he demanded, gripping her shoulders. “I need to see them.”

Rose gave him one last comforting rake through his hair with her nails — when her hand left his hair he almost grabbed it and put it back — before reaching to her right and picking up a shadowy scan. He hastily took it from her, holding it up to the light and swallowing hard— in the upper corner of his ribcage was one heart. Theories started whirring in his mind at once — the theory that this could be faked, or might not even be his x-rays at all — so, since there was only one judgement that he’d ever trust, he dropped the scan to the ground and turned to her, eyes blown wide with desperation. Grabbing her hands, he pressed them hurriedly to both sides of his chest and said urgently, “How many hearts do I have?” 

She obediently kept her palms on his chest, indulging him by listening closely to his heartbeats. After a brief moment, she released him, taking his own hands and pressing them where hers had been. He whimpered when he felt the steady thrum on his left hand only.

“Just one heart. Singular,” she said quietly.

So he really was crazy. He let out a terrified sob, gravitating towards her for comfort at once; she slipped her hands off his chest and wrapped them around his trembling frame instead, holding him tightly and rocking him. His entire world was just a figment of his imagination, his foundation was crumbling underneath him and he was falling. He tightened his grip on her, letting out a shuddering breath into her neck— he was really human, just like her. 

“… it doesn’t matter,” he heard her whispering next to his ear. “You’re still brilliant.” How could he be brilliant if he was just a madman in an asylum who thought he was a genius alien? What if all the science in his head was just his imaginings? Did that still make him smart? Did—? “I know what you’re thinking,” Rose’s gentle voice interrupted his thoughts. “But you really are brilliant, even if you’re sick.”

“I’m not _sick_ ,” he snarled, and immediately regretted it— Rose didn’t deserve him snapping at her.

“Yes you are,” she said firmly, apparently unperturbed. “You’re sick and you can get better. I know you don’t remember anythin’ about before you came here, but you had a life— a human life.”

His horror at the discovery that everything he knew was wrong was pushed to the side for a moment, making way for curiosity. “What was it like?”

“I dunno, sweetheart,” she said, and despite the situation he felt a stab of delight at her repeated endearment. “The government’s sealed your files.”

His curiosity grew larger at that, and he lifted his head up off her shoulder to frown at her, although he didn’t relinquish his hold on her. “Which ones?” 

“All of ‘em,” Rose said, smiling a bit at him now that he was acting a bit more like his usual self. “We did manage to get a few of your medical records, but only enough to make sure you weren’t allergic to anything we gave you. You are allergic to morphine.”

“And aspirin,” he said automatically, before he slumped. “Unless I made that up too.”

“Nope, that’s true,” Rose grinned, tongue in teeth. “You’re really weird.”

“Am not,” he argued at once, making her laugh and him smile against his will. He ducked his head, a question niggling in the back of his mind. “Rose?”

“Hm?”

“Is my real name really John Smith?”

“Yes,” she said.

He started to fidget, fingers playing with a loose thread on her lab coat. “Maybe you should call me that instead, then.”

“D’you want me to?” Rose asked gently, with a knowing look. 

“No,” he said truthfully. “But I’m not the Doctor— I’m John Smith. You said so yourself.”

“You’re as much the Doctor now as you were yesterday, even if it’s not in your files,” she told him, smiling. “‘Sides, I like callin’ you ‘Doctor’ better anyway.”

“Yeah?” he said hopefully, the corners of his mouth curling up.

“Yep.”

He hummed happily. While he couldn’t bounce around the universe saying, “Hello! I’m the Doctor, just the Doctor,” anymore, at least Rose would continue calling him by the name he’d chosen for himself— perhaps not as a graduated Time Lord, but he’d chosen it all the same. Exhaustion crept up on him; his eyelids grew heavy and he yawned — Time Lords wouldn’t yawn — prompting Rose to try and lower him back down onto his pillows. “Bed for you now, Mister.”

“Don’t leave,” he pleaded, keeping his arms locked around her. She was his only anchor to reality — the only reason he was _in_ reality — and he was terrified that if she left, he’d slip back into his delusions.

Rose gave him the warmest look he’d ever seen from anyone (even Sharon, although hers had always been off-putting) and said, “‘M not gonna.” 

With that assurance, he obediently settled back down, and with a burst of courage and a red face he pulled her down with him, so that she was half leaning on him, head nestled in the crook between his neck and shoulder. His mind screamed with the knowledge that nurses didn’t snuggle with their patients, but either Rose was ignoring it or didn’t get the memo, because she obediently snuggled into him, curling her fingers around his and raising her legs off the ground so she was properly on the bed. He bit back the pleased, silly ‘ooh’ that he was itching to utter and, ignoring the stab of arousal in his groin at the knowledge that Rose was in bed with him, drifted off.

He dreamed of Rose as the Moment, sitting on top of the clockwork box with his head in her lap, running her fingers through his hair as she whispered next to his ear, “The Moment has come.” 

*

On the second day he managed to coax his attending doctor into allowing him to wear his Oxford and trousers instead of that _awful_ hospital gown, but it was little improvement, as most of his stay was spent in utter boredom, since Rose couldn’t stay all the time. During those moments he either drew her in his sketchbook (ranging from something he was proud of to something that ashamed him) or wrote down every single scientific detail he could remember in a notepad he asked Rose to get, just so he could compare it to reality later. When Rose was there, they often talked— usually punctuated by the fact that they were laughing too hard to speak.

“What on Earth is this?” Rose asked, frowning and flipping through his notebook. 

“Every bit of scientific data I have in my head,” the Doctor said. “Dunno if most of it’s true or not— at least, the alien stuff anyway.”

“You wrote it down,” she noted, and he nodded. She beamed at him, and although he couldn’t possibly see what he’d done right, he preened nonetheless. “You ought to do the same with your adventures.”

“Er, what?”

“You should write down everything you remember,” Rose said earnestly, eyes sparkling. “About the Time Lords and the Academy, all of the Doctor’s incarnations and adventures, and the written and verbal language.”

His jaw dropped as his mind raced, already starting to form his old adventures into words he could see on a page. “Rose, that’s brilliant!” He scooped her into a gigantic hug, twirling her around like he had before everything had gone pear-shaped. “I could write them all down and turn them into fiction! Oh, Rose, you magnificent, brilliant, fantastic woman, you’re a genius!”

“Says the bloke with a notebook full of alien science,” Rose grinned, but she looked pleased anyway. 

“There are some things I don’t remember though,” the Doctor said contemplatively, more to himself than to her. He released her and immediately began pacing. “Well, I’ll just make it up later— I did that for the rest, after all. And I’ll have to figure out how I survived the Time War…”

“You’ll get there,” she said encouragingly, giggling at his pacing. “And you can publish all your artwork too.”

 _Well, not_ all _of it_ , a snide voice in the back of his mind said, and he spent the next ten minutes deflecting about why his face was red. 

He spent the next few days writing, filling the void in his memory for his ninth and tenth self with imagined adventures between him and Rose, his companion. He didn’t know her last name yet — he’d have to ask that of her later — so he avoided the use and made up a background for her: a young lower-class girl working at a shop (she’d told him once upon a time that she’d had a part-time job at Henrik’s, so he based it there) who met him when the shop dummies came to life. He didn’t tell Rose he was basing his first bout of fictional adventures with her as his companion— one day, he’d surprise her with it. 

On the fourth day he managed to convince Rose to pose for him. At his request she was sitting on his bed with her arm outstretched, blushing scarlet every time he looked away from the page to glance at her. He smirked every time, burning the image of her blush in his mind to draw later. 

“Sit still,” he ordered for tenth time when she fidgeted.

“Hurry up,” she countered, cheeks tinged pink.

He was already done — all that was left to do was a bit of shading — but it was fun to watch her wriggle and blush. Finishing up on her hair, he promptly announced, “Finished,” grinning stupidly when she hurled herself off the bed and positioned herself next to him to get a look.

It was of her as Bad Wolf, eyes glowing gold (although it wasn’t shown in the pencil drawing) and hand outstretched, dissolving a fleet of Daleks into golden dust. He’d write that down too, later, but for now he was simply content with her happy hum and delighted, “It’s gorgeous.”

After much coaxing, she told him her last name— Tyler. Rose Marion Tyler, she’d said her name was. It suited her beautifully, and when he told her so, she blushed the loveliest shade of pink, inspiring the fond nickname ‘his pink-and-yellow girl’. One time, in exchange for another story about Gallifrey, she even brought him the lunch he requested.

“Fish custard,” she grimaced, watching him eat it for a moment before shielding her eyes and letting out a disgusted ‘ugh’. 

“I’ll have you know it’s delicious,” he argued, pushing the bowl in her direction. “Try it.”

“Ugh, no, ta!” she laughed, pushing it back. “I’ll stick to chips.”

“Chips?” 

She nodded. “Chips. I love chips.”

He filed away that tidbit of information for later, thrilled that he knew something about her beyond her name and her favourite colour. Maybe when he got out of the asylum, he’d take her out for chips.

He was properly out of the hospital in two weeks. To his immense displeasure, Rose wasn’t the one who was picking him up— Sharon was. She greeted him at the door with a, “Hello there, Johnny! Feeling better?” dressed in another shapeless dress and a _horrid_ pink hat with a gigantic black feather in the cap. 

“Where’s Rose?” was his response.

“Couldn’t make it today, dear,” said Sharon, patting his hand knowingly. “Was in a meeting with the members of the board. Did you know they might be demoting Kovarian because of your accident?”

‘Accident’, she called it. He snorted— what had happened to him wasn’t an accident, it was avoidable idiocy. Sharon led him towards a waiting taxi, the driver of which was leaning out the window with a cigarette in his mouth. Not wanting to talk to Sharon, the Doctor stared out the window the whole time Sharon chattered with the driver. He grimaced as a giant white building loomed into view, the sign reading ‘Bad Wolf Asylum’ in giant bold lettering. The only Bad Wolf he wanted was Rose, enough said. 

“Rose tells me you’ve accepted that you’re human,” Sharon cooed whilst she was leading him back down towards his room. “That’s brilliant, Johnny!” 

“Don’t call me that,” he replied moodily, wondering if Rose was back yet.

“This is the first time you’ve ever done that,” she continued dreamily, oblivious. “Bet it’s ‘cause of Rose, eh Johnny?”

He flushed crimson and looked at the ceiling— was he so obvious that even _Sharon_ of all people could see it? “Dunno what you mean.”

“Well, Rose _is_ an absolute sweetheart,” Sharon said, giving him a confused look. He mentally sighed with relief. “Even managed to get Melody to like her, and Melody’s not too fond of anyone, really.” Sharon unlocked his door, stepping aside so he could enter. “Everyone’s in group right now, but you got here late so you can just stay in your room if you like.”

“Magnificent idea,” he mumbled— anything to skip group. 

“I’ll have to lock you in so you don’t go wandering,” she told him, looking hopeful as though that would change his mind.

“By all means,” the Doctor waved dismissively, already dropping his notebook, sketchbook and pencils onto his desk so he could continue writing. 

Sharon obediently closed the door behind him, leaving him to his own devices. He spent another hour in blissful solitude, jotting down some notes on his Academy days and starting on an adventure in which he and Rose watch a spaceship crash into Big Ben, when Rose burst into his room, face flushed and hair askew.

“You’re back!” he burst out at once, jumping out of his chair and scooping her into a hug.

The Doctor flushed when he realised what he’d done, but she simply beamed at him. “Sorry I couldn’t pick you up— was in a meeting,” she said happily, hugging him back tightly. “The nurses rallied against Kovarian. Well, except Solomon— bloody old pillock’s over the moon for her, but who cares what he thinks anyway?” He laughed into her hair. “The board’s scheduled a hearing in two weeks. Hopefully she’ll be sacked by then.”

He hummed in agreement, indulging his fantasies by pretending Rose was doing this for revenge for his sake. He opened his mouth to tell her she was brilliant, but Sharon’s voice from the hall cooing, “Dinnertime, Johnny!” made them both jump and immediately release each other, blushing.

*

The Doctor spent the next couple of weeks in the asylum with only a slight change in his routine. The moment he’d headed up to the cafeteria, Brian had greeted him with a, “Hello again, Doctor, I’m Brian,” to which the Doctor irritably replied, “I didn’t forget, Brian.” Brian’s tone had changed immediately into a relieved, “Thank God you’re all right, m’boy!” 

Because he took his meds without complaint and even started opening up a bit in the horrid activity known as group — which took a lot of coaxing on Rose’s part — soon the Doctor was granted privileges: the usage of the telephones, which he never used, since the only person he wanted to talk to was always there; limited time on the piano in the activity room (he’d impressed Rose by expertly playing a Tchaikovsky piece despite not knowing whether or not he could play at all); and, a few glorious times, the ability to go further out into the grounds instead of being confined to the basketball court. 

On his first trip in the courtyard, despite being supervised by Sharon, he was delighted to discover a lovely little spot in an open field of buttercups, next to a craning willow tree. His second trip was spent there, drawing and writing, and his third was graced with Rose’s presence— thankfully she was his ‘supervisor’ this time. Although, he mused happily as he watched her, she wasn’t doing a very good job of it, since she was sleeping in the buttercup field next to him. He’d spread out his coat underneath him so they could lounge, but she’d fallen asleep after a brief hour. She kept rolling over in her sleep and scrunching up her nose every time the wind blew a flower towards her face. He snatched his sketchbook up from the ground and hastily started to draw her, both because the image of her was utterly entrancing and because it would keep him from lying down next to her and holding her. Or doing other things that were far worse. 

When the Doctor made a satisfied noise at his finished drawing, she stirred and mumbled, “Hmm, did I fall asleep?”

“No,” he grinned, and she let out a sleepy giggle, sat up and rubbed at her eyes.

“Don’t tell Sharon,” Rose said, before eyeing him warily. “You’d better not have drawn me sleeping.”

“Might’ve,” he said innocently, smiling at her with affection. 

“Ugh, bet I looked like I had a stroke.”

He was itching to tell her just how beautiful he’d thought she was, but instead he said airily, “Nah, was more like a seizure.”

She swatted his arm with a playful, “Oi.” Stretching and missing the way he swallowed and looked away, Rose checked her mobile. “We were s’posed to be back ten minutes ago.”

“I’m sure Sharon will be devastated,” the Doctor said, helping her up and snatching up his coat and pencils. “Want to run?”

“Yeah,” she said happily, tongue between her teeth again.

He grabbed her hand, both of them giggling as they took off towards the building.

*

He was his tenth self, blinking at his surroundings. He was in the TARDIS, but he was also standing on a beach, and some distance in front of him looking at him with the utmost look of devastation, was Rose. Her hair was being whipped by the wind and spray from the ocean was making drops cling to her clothes, coupled with the tears tracking down her face. 

“I—” she swallowed, letting out a sob. “I love you.”

 _Oh_. His hearts clenched, and he smiled sadly like his throat didn’t feel like it was filled with jagged rocks. “Quite right, too.” She brought a hand up to her forehead, a cross between a sob and a laugh bubbling out of her throat. “And I suppose, if it’s my last chance to say it, Rose Tyler—”

The beach and her hopeful look vanished, the TARDIS console room returning to his vision. Horror ripped through his body, making him squeeze his eyes shut as tears tracked down his face, and when in his dream he collapsed to the grating, his following sobbing startled him awake. He sat up abruptly, getting tangled in the sheets at once and tumbling to the floor, hitting his head on the side of the nightstand— he was unperturbed, scrambling up abruptly, breaths coming out ragged. His chest was tight enough to hurt, his face was wet and his legs were itching to bolt out of the room in search of Rose. The rational side of the Doctor’s mind knew perfectly well that Rose was not trapped in another universe, that she’d be coming into his room in an hour or two to give him his meds, but his single heart was pumping twice as fast and terror was blinding him. 

He alternated between huddling in the corner and pacing his room, silently panicking and glancing every six seconds towards the small window to see if he could spot anything. He’d almost nodded off at his desk when the door creaked open, making him start. Rose’s beautiful golden head popped into the room, wearing another brilliant smile. “Mornin’!” 

The Doctor’s only response was a strangled whimper, and he jumped off the chair and flung himself at her. He ignored her startled gasp and buried his face into her hair, inhaling deeply and raggedly.

“Hey, what’s the matter?” she asked confusedly, reaching a hand up and carding her fingers through his hair.

“I lost you,” he whimpered.

“What?”

“I lost you. We were on a beach in Norway, and I lost you. And I didn’t say it in time.” 

“Say what?” 

He hadn’t had a chance to say it on Darlig Ulv Stranden, but he could say it now. Pulling back, releasing her shoulders and raising his hands up to cup the sides of her face, he said earnestly, “I love you.”

The Doctor managed to see a flicker of brief astonishment in her eyes before her face was dipping towards his and their mouths crashed together. His arms tumbled off her shoulders and flailed out for a moment like he was emulating a windmill, before his brain caught up with him and he clamped her to his body tighter, arms winding around her like a snake. Rose was _snogging_ him. Rose was snogging _him_! He was just a madman who thought he was an alien and spent his nights dreaming about fucking her— and Rose was snogging him anyway. Maybe she loved him too? _Oh_ , by Rassilon, if she loved him too…

Rose’s hands left his hair (and that was not an unmanly whine of disappointment he just made) and fisted around the hem of his Oxford instead, yanking it out of his trousers so her fingers could rake up his abdomen. His stomach jerked and he let out a silly sounding, “ _Oooh_ …” into her mouth when her thumb dipped into the waistband of his trousers and his cock twitched, hardening rapidly at the prospect of things to come. It felt a lot less forbidden, now that he knew he wasn’t a Time Lord and that intercourse with a human didn’t mean punishment by permanent exile, which is probably why he didn’t feel the usual urge to run in the other direction when she unzipped his trousers and dipped her hand inside. 

The moment her hot fingers curled around his erection and freed it from its confines, the back of the Doctor’s head hit the wall behind him with an audible bang, pulling his mouth away from hers so he could groan embarrassingly loudly. She took advantage of his bared throat and nibbled on his pulse point, jerking him off in time to her sucking. At first all he could do was loll his head back and try to control his moaning— he’d choose human over Time Lord any day if _this_ is what it meant. Her hand was hot and the feeling of her soft skin pumping his cock sent shuddering waves of pleasure pooling in his stomach; for a moment he imagined how good it would feel to be buried inside her heat instead of her palm and it sent a surge of urgency shooting downward, making him thrust his hips up and whimper. His balls were tight and drawing up towards his body, signalling his approaching orgasm, and he hastily stilled her hand by wrapping his own around her wrist, wanting to come inside her instead of by her hand. 

She seemed to understand, since she immediately started shimmying out of her lab coat and blouse while he made quick work of his Oxford. His hands stilled on the buttons when she unhooked her bra and let it fall to the floor, and for a good minute or so all the Doctor was doing was staring at her bare breasts with his mouth open like a fish. Rose snapped him out of his reverie by giggling and giving his cock another tug with her hand, making his urgency explode and causing him to crash his mouth onto hers again. His hands shoved themselves underneath her bottom, hoisting her up so she had to wrap her legs around his waist to stop from falling and pushing her against the wall, holding her up with his hips while his hands worked at peeling her knickers down her legs from underneath her skirt. 

“Oh,” he gasped in shock, when he let a finger trail into her folds to test if she was ready and found her soaked.

“Want you,” she said huskily, meeting his astonished gaze with half-lidded eyes. “In. Now.”

His cock throbbed at her demanding tone and lustful look, and he wasted no time lining himself up with her dripping entrance and sliding into her. The Doctor’s whole body shuddered as he sheathed himself completely, dropping his head onto her shoulder and stilling so he could get used to the utter ecstasy of being enclosed by her pulsing warmth. She seemed to understand that he needed a moment, hands trailing up his bare back and lips pressing gentle kisses to the shell of his ear. Once the Doctor knew for certain that he wasn’t going to go shooting off like a teenager, he gripped her bum tightly and started to move.

The Doctor tried to keep it slow and gentle, pushing into her with sweet strokes as he kissed her leisurely, but sweetness gave way to need in no time at all, and soon he was pounding into her erratically, unable to do anything but press his forehead against hers and pant out silly-sounding groans. She hummed in his ear and started to snake a hand between them, but he swatted it away and reached down with his instead, fingers sliding easily over her engorged clit and rubbing it in sync to his harsh thrusts until she was as far gone as he was, a sobbing mess on the wall.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he hissed into her ear. “Rose, I’m going to come fast. You’ve gotta…”

“‘M gonna,” she whimpered in response, her channel clenching as his fingers sped up their rubbing.

The feeling of her tighten around him made his loudest moan yet tumble from his mouth, and before he knew or wanted it deafening pleasure was stiffening his muscles, kicking back his head and spilling his seed into her womb. Even in the haze from his orgasm, he was painfully aware that she hadn’t come, so he kept thrusting despite his slowly waning erection and creeping exhaustion, and it only took three more thrusts and his thumb pressing down harshly on her clit to get her to shatter beautifully in front of him, eyes squeezed shut, mouth open and letting out the most magnificent sounds. His knees gave out at once and she slid down the wall into his lap, their heavy breaths getting intermingled as he cradled her in their awkward position, soft cock still inside her. 

“I love you too,” he heard her mumble into his neck, and his delightfully singular heart soared.

“Oh Rose, I love you,” he whispered, because it was the best thing he could say in response. Tears of joy pricked at his eyes. “I love you, I love you, I love you so much, I love you…”

Later, he would muse that he was happy he wasn’t the Time Lord from his imaginings. The real Doctor wouldn’t have been able to tell her, but he had. She knew.

Oh, she knew.

*

It was a few weeks after they’d shagged in his room, and now they do it all the time. In really inappropriate places too— in janitor’s closets, out in the courtyard, and one memorable time in the hall when everybody else was in group. A few times, upon his request, she snuck into his room after hours. They didn’t always have sex; she snuggled with him sometimes, and once to his utter delight she even fell asleep in his bed. It was deliciously human, and it only made his gratefulness that he wasn’t a Time Lord grow. He couldn’t so much as hold her hand in public, since Rose would definitely be sacked if the other nurses knew… much to his chagrin, since Mickey kept flirting with her and all he wanted to do was shove Rose against the wall and snog her, so the Idiot knew that she belonged to _him_.

They talked about what he would do when he got out. Since neither of them knew his background, they weren’t certain where he’d go, if he had anywhere to go, nor how long he had left in the facility. It was clear by the nurses’ initial attitudes towards him and his old penchant to relapse into his fantasies that his admittance hadn’t been voluntary, which probably meant that a judge had determined his sentence a long time ago. Either way, whenever he got out of here, he wanted — no, he _needed_ — to be with her. Sooner or later (hopefully later) he knew he’d have to kick his dependence on her, but he also knew he most likely couldn’t survive on his own on the outside without her helping him. 

One day, he was in his room, forcing himself to stay awake just in case Rose came in. The door opened and his heart soared; he sat up, but instead of her usual creeping lope, she hurried towards him breathlessly, arms clutching something against her chest, unrecognisable in the dark. 

“What is it?” he asked, grinning happily when she launched herself straight into his arms.

“Kovarian’s been sacked!” He couldn’t even open his mouth to reply; she was so animated. “And I managed to get your files opened!”

“You did?” he gaped, shocked.

She nodded, pulling away from him to show her what she’d been holding— a thin beige folder. “I have them here, if you want to read them.”

He swallowed, frowning at them, single heart speeding up its beating inside his ribcage. Her smile faded a bit, replaced by concern, and he asked thickly, “Did… did you read it?”

She shook her head. “Figured you’d want to first.”

“Read it to me,” he said quietly, because that was the only way he’d believe it.

An almost understanding smile blossomed on her mouth, and she said softly, “Okay.” 

He took her hand and led her to his bed, sitting down next to her and smiling when she scooted as close to him as possible, snuggled into his side and flipped open the folder. A picture of his younger, less haggard self was in the top right corner, and Rose giggled at it. “Look at you, wearin’ a bowtie there too.” 

“Bowties are cool,” he defended, before sobering. “Where did I live?” 

“Everywhere,” Rose grinned, tongue in teeth. “You travelled a lot, but your main residence is listed as here in London.”

“Where did I work?”

“UNIT,” she replied, with another fond smile. “Went to Oxford, you. You’re an actual doctor.”

“Of what?”

She snorted. “It’d be easier to tell you what you’re _not_ a doctor of, Mister.” She nudged his side when he preened. “Most of it’s science-y stuff, so you’re more of a scientist— although it does say you have a PhD in medicine too.”

Worry he didn’t even know was there seeped out of him, replaced with relief— so the science in his head _wasn’t_ a figment of his imagination. Thank Rassilon. “What did I do at UNIT?”

“That’s classified,” she said with a mocking haughty expression, until he gave her a look and she giggled. “No, it really is!”

He let out an interested ‘ooh’— once he got out of here he could go back to UNIT and poke around to see what his ‘classified’ work was. The Doctor sobered quickly, a dangerous question forming on his lips, one that he wasn’t sure he wanted an answer to. “Did… did I have a family?”

By the way her smile slid off her face into hesitancy, the answer wasn’t good. “You had a… wife, named Idris, an’ a daughter named Susan.”

He remembered Susan — in some form, anyway — but he’d modelled her as his granddaughter, not his daughter. Then his stomach dropped. “‘Had’?”

“They died five years ago,” she said quietly, already gripping his hand tightly as though worried he’d run away or break down crying. 

Five years ago… that’s when House had said he’d been admitted to the asylum. Had their deaths been so horrible that he went insane and created an entirely new story because of it? “How?”

“Are you sure you want to know?” she asked him softly, trailing her thumb over the skin of his hand comfortingly. He nodded. “It says it was a gas explosion. The house caught fire.”

Oh. He stayed quiet for a long while, letting Rose slowly calm him down with her gentle ministrations. “Then… I turned that into the Time War.”

“Guess so,” she said, nudging her head into the crook of his neck. 

“My parents?”

“You were orphaned when you were young. No grandparents, or cousins or brothers and sisters.”

That was another thing that didn’t correspond with his Time Lord memories— but then, his real parents weren’t Time Lords partially shunned for having a rogue son. And he wasn’t quite sure if he should mourn the loss of his brother Brax or not. “What else?”

“That’s it,” Rose murmured, closing the folder with one hand and setting it down on his nightstand. “That’s all UNIT gave us.”

He swallowed hard again, leaning his head against hers. He didn’t remember anything about Idris or his old life nor did he remember living in London in a house that was destroyed in a gas explosion. He did remember working for UNIT, but in his third body and primarily about alien stuff, so maybe that was the reason his work was ‘classified’, because it actually had to do with aliens— in which case, they’d never let him back just in case it made him relapse, which was unfortunate. “Will I ever remember that life?” 

“Dunno, sweetheart,” she told him. “You could remember little bits of it or nothing at all, for the rest of your life.”

He was fine with that. It was selfish of him to think it, but he felt he’d rather never remember his life before Rose came into it. Hell, the only true memories he had before he met Rose were the ones spent in a forcibly doped haze. “When do I get out of here?”

“If you keep bein’ a good boy—” she smirked and he blushed against his will, “— you can leave here in three weeks’ time.”

“Rose?”

“Hm?”

“What’ll I do when I leave?” His tone sounded a lot more terrified than he’d intended. “Where will I go?”

“You can stay with me,” she said, and warm relief bubbled in his stomach. “No arguing,” she added firmly, when he opened his mouth— not to argue, but to thank her.

He chuckled, turning his head and nuzzling his nose against her ear. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Don’t call me that,” she hummed, gooseflesh erupting over her neck. “I love you, y’know that?”

He echoed her hum, pushing the folder out of sight and lowering her down onto his sheets. “Oh, Rose, I know.”

*

One of the conditions for getting an early release was that he had to meet at least once per remaining week with the facility psychiatrist. He’d refused earlier, since he’d still been under the impression that he was an alien being held by other aliens and had had no desire to talk about his feelings to yet another alien trying to convince him he was crazy, but now that he knew the truth, all he wanted was to leave this part of his life behind him and start his new one with Rose. 

So now the Doctor was standing outside the office door of one ‘Dr. Vastra’, trying to hide his look of nervousness. Rose was with him, thank Rassilon, but so was Sharon, so he couldn’t hold her hand or kiss her to calm himself down. She was as close to him as appropriately possible, giving him encouraging smiles and curling her hand over his shoulder. The place where her hand touched radiated warmth and he tried to take comfort in that as she nudged him towards the door. 

Rose wasn’t allowed to follow him into the room, so the moment he stepped into the office and the door closed behind her, shutting her out, his nervousness returned like a wrecking ball to the chest. He clenched his fists, trying to fight his urge to run away by examining his surroundings— the room was clearly trying too hard to be comforting, since it was literally the only room he’d seen that didn’t have utilitarian white walls and floor tiles. The wallpaper was dark blue with little vertical patterned forget-me-nots, the floor was a warm brown carpet and there was a tall, lush potted plant in the corner. Next to the plant was a dark oak desk, seated behind which was a sharp-looking woman with a hunter green, almost reptilian outfit, holding a pen and an opened notepad.

“Hello, Mr. Smith,” Vastra said gently, gesturing towards the chair. “Sit down.” His legs twitched, before obediently steering him in the direction of the chair and sitting down. “My name’s Dr. Vastra— it’s nice to finally meet you.” He granted her a nervous smile, his knee bouncing nervously as he glanced towards the door, hoping Rose was still waiting for him despite having been in there for less than a minute. “Is there something bothering you?” she added.

“What? Me? No, no, no, I’m peachy,” he stammered, before shutting his mouth with a click to prevent himself from going into a nervous babble. 

“You seem nervous about something,” Vastra said kindly. 

He opened his mouth to hurriedly decline, but a voice in his mind that sounded suspiciously like Rose’s made him change his mind. “I’m nervous you’ll still think I need psychiatric help and keep me here.”

She nodded, and her hand started to write, but her eyes never left him. The green in her outfit made the emerald colour of her irises stand out. “Do you think you still need psychiatric help?”

“No,” he said at once, truthfully. 

“Why is that?”

He didn’t answer, instead flicking his eyes towards the door again. Vastra frowned, craning her neck slightly to see through the blinds out into the hall. Her face dawned with an understanding look the moment she spotted Rose, which terrified him. “Ah. You and Miss Tyler are close, right?”

“She’s nice,” he said vaguely, even though she was so much more than just that.

Vastra chuckled. “Relax, I’ve been in your position. I won’t tell if you don’t.” 

Vastra took out a photo from her desk drawer and handed it to him, of a brunette girl. He frowned at it and asked, “Who’s this?”

“Jenny Flint, my wife,” she sighed, smiling at the photo. “She was a patient here about two years before you were, and a client of mine… among other things.” He gaped at her, and Vastra let out another chuckle. “Yes, I’ve done the whole sneaking around routine; you needn’t keep anything from me.”

He glanced wistfully towards the door again, his mind still screaming that he couldn’t trust this woman with anything, but he resolved when he knew that Rose wanted him to trust her. She’d told him in the hall beforehand, after all.

“I love Rose,” was all he admitted, and the sound of his own admittance gave him the confidence to stare her straight in the eye.

“Does she love you?” Vastra asked, pen tapping on her notepad. 

He nodded, smile curling over his mouth unbidden, butterflies fluttering in his chest. “Yep.”

“Did she say that?”

Part of him understood that there had probably been several patients to cross Vastra’s desk with delusions that somebody loved them back, but he still couldn’t help the glare of annoyance. “Yes.”

Vastra nodded, scribbling again. “Miss Tyler is the one who appealed to get you released, yes?”

He hummed happily and repeated, “Yep!”

“It’s her professional opinion that you have been fully rehabilitated and have had no delusions whatsoever. Do you think she’s right?”

He wondered if ‘delusions’ meant his extraordinarily detailed dreams, but after remembering the frankly very different definitions of both words, he decided against it. “Yes.”

“What is it you want when you get out of here, Mr. Smith?” Vastra said, flipping the page and continuing her scribbling.

He stared for a long time at her paperweight, before saying quietly, “I want to go home.”

“Do you remember where home is?”

He raised his head and smiled weakly at the woman. “ _Rose_ is home.”

Vastra nodded earnestly, scribbling furiously in her notebook. “And would you say that you need her to… live, exist? Something like that?”

The Doctor heaved out a sigh— he knew he was mental, but not _that_ kind of mental. “Right now? I do need her, but not to live or exist or whatever piffle other nutters come up with. I need her help. The only reason I haven’t forgotten everything all over again, the only reason I’m _sane_ , is ‘cos of her. But later on, when I’m better, when I’m out of here and off medication? I won’t _need_ her… but I’ll still want her,” he added softly. He stood up abruptly, pacing across the room, one hand on his chin pensively. “She’s all I have right now, besides my sanity— which she gave to me. The only two nurses I remember meeting at first were Sharon and House, who either treated me like a stupid child or an annoying nuisance. They tried to suppress my… delusions.”

“But Miss Tyler didn’t?”

He shook his head, well aware a decidedly silly grin was spreading over his face. “She didn’t outright tell me they weren’t real, and she encouraged me to tell her about them. And when I accepted reality, she even suggested I turn my adventures into fiction.”

“Do you think this might trigger a relapse?” Vastra asked contemplatively.

He shook his head again. “Seeing them in fictional form only makes it clearer that it’s not real. Maybe for some people it’d cause them to relapse, but not for me.” _And somehow, Rose knew that_ , he left unsaid, but Vastra seemed to catch onto it anyway.

She questioned him for another hour or so, and he got more and more relaxed with each passing minute— not only did she ask him questions about his fiction, which he was more than happy to share, she also had no idea that he was able to read her notes upside-down, most of which were positive; he was thankful to notice that, during the moments where he’d talked about Rose, she’d written down ‘has found a positive outlet to help cope with and hang onto reality’.

When the Doctor exited Vastra’s office, he was glad to see that Sharon was gone, and Rose was still waiting for him. Despite Vastra waiting at the door, he bounced straight towards Rose and scooped her into a gigantic hug, burying his face in her neck and humming happily. 

“I’m gonna assume that meant it went well?” Rose grinned, seeming just as unconcerned by Vastra’s presence as he was, since she gave his hair a playful comb with her fingers.

“Very well,” Vastra said from behind him, amusement and a little bit of wistfulness in her voice. “If he keeps this up, he’ll be out of here by the end of the month.”

Rose beamed at him, looking like she was on the verge of squealing and jumping up and down. “‘M so proud of you!” Before he could answer with something pertaining to just how goddamn much he loved her, she turned to Vastra and said, “Thank you, Vastra. Say hello to Jenny for me.”

Vastra smirked and his jaw dropped to the ground, gaping at Rose as she led him down the hall by his arm. “Jenny… you said… and she… and you…” he spluttered, making her giggle.

“You didn’t honestly think it was a coincidence that you got the one psychiatrist who happened to have also been sneakin’ around with a patient against the rules?” Rose grinned, tongue between her teeth. “I knew only Vastra’d get it.”

He pinned her against the wall at once, crashing his mouth against hers and plunging his tongue inside. She melted into butter at once, hands flying up to tangle in his hair and grinding her hips against his, making him groan and harden at once. That snapped him out of it, and he pulled away slowly; as much as he wanted to have another delightful shag fest in the halls, he didn’t want to do it with Vastra peering through the blinds with amusement (as she was now). “Have I ever told you how much I bloody love you, Rose?” he said breathlessly, through slightly bruised lips.

Her tongue went to the corner of her mouth again. “Might’ve once or twice.” 

“That’s it?” He frowned mockingly, shaking his head. “That won’t do. Gonna have to say it a billion billion times more.”

“I’ll welcome that,” Rose grinned, and he beamed and leaned down to kiss her again.

*

He was out. It was a miracle, granted by a golden-haired angel who first came to him when he was half-asleep in a padded room he mistook in his drug-induced dreams for a giant pillow, but he was actually out.

He met with Vastra only twice more, where she assessed his condition each time and proudly told him that he was doing magnificently. He was more than happy to share his thoughts with her now (even if he did sometimes tend to ramble about science-y stuff), and he wasn’t all that astonished when Rose told him he was being weaned off his anti-psychotics. At first he was a bit nervous about it, but when he spent a full five days without medication in his system and he felt fit as a Fidelius fiddle, he was more than excited. By the end of the month, he found Rose waiting for him inside his room when he returned from group, the utmost look of delight on her face. She’d all but flung herself at him, crushing their mouths together and making him fall on his arse.

“Er, what was that for?” he asked, silly grin on his face when she pulled away, now sitting in his lap on the floor.

“You need to pack your things,” she whispered, as though saying the news too loudly would ruin the effect.

“How come?” he frowned. Were they moving him to a new room?

“‘Cos you’re leavin’,” she beamed. “In two days.”

Astonishment washed over him, and his mouth fell open. “Y-yeah?”

“Yes!”

Shocked laughter bubbled in his throat, and he picked her up by her bum, jumped up and spun her around, nearly falling down again because of his trembling limbs. He was finally going to leave, and start his new life with Rose. They’d live together, do domestic stuff that his Time Lord self would have shuddered at (another reason he was glad not to be a Time Lord) and he could kiss her in public to ward off any pretty boys that might try to steal her.

Rose watched him pack his bags like he was a small bowtie-wearing tornado, grabbing his clothes and shoving them haphazardly into the suitcase she’d slipped into his room. He took extra care to take down all of his loose drawings and place them in his sketchbook so they wouldn’t get crumpled, packing it and his notebook and pencils at the bottom of the suitcase to ensure their safety. Then he snogged her again, just because he felt like it.

It was almost heart wrenching, saying goodbye to his group. Despite his initial distaste for them, he hadn’t realised until now that they’d shaped a big part of the only reality he knew. Kate bid him goodbye with a, “When you get back to UNIT, say hello to Grandfather!” and even though he had no idea who she was talking about, he promised to; Winston’s, meanwhile, was a speech filled with sesquipedalian words that nearly put him to sleep, and the Gunslinger’s farewell was a happy wave and a, “I promise I’ll look after Mercy for you!” 

It was hard to say goodbye to Amy and Rory, with his head full of memories of them having a grand old time, but he knew it wasn’t real and they weren’t actually his Ponds, and the knowledge that he’d one day write about his real Ponds was comforting. Brian, meanwhile, was particularly difficult to say goodbye to— not just because the Doctor had to wait until Brian finished his long-winded, teary-eyed speech lest he get the man agitated, but because Brian, besides his Rose, had been the only person who treated him as a friend instead of just another mental case. 

The Doctor was half-terrified half-excited as he crossed the front parking lot at the end of the day, holding his suitcase, Clara and Vastra calling out goodbyes to him from the front door and Sharon actually waving a handkerchief. Rose was waiting for him beside a taxi, no longer clad in office attire but in a pair of tight-fitting jeans and a pink hoodie, which made him beam— was this what she wore normally? 

“Ready?” she grinned, taking his hand.

He inhaled deeply and nodded, heart bouncing off the inside of his ribcage. “Yeah.”

She ushered him into the car, and he held onto her hand for dear life as he watched the words ‘Bad Wolf Asylum’ grow smaller and smaller until it was all but a pinprick in the distance. On the drive down he kept bouncing his knee and opening his mouth, certain that he should be saying _something_ , but he closed his mouth each time, unsure of just what that something was supposed to be. She ended up calming him down in that magical way of hers by scooting closer to him, leaning her head on his shoulder; he relaxed at once, elation bubbling in his chest and a content sigh tumbling from his lips.

Rose’s flat was in the eastern district of London, moderately sized with a decent view. She dropped her keys into a bowl on the counter when they walked in, saying, “Are you hungry? Could order in— dunno if you’ve ever had chips, but—”

His mouth crashing on hers shut her up, his suitcase tumbling to the floor as he coiled his arms around her. She whimpered when his hands curled over her bum, hers tangling in his hair the way he liked. He picked her up and stumbled forward, her legs wrapping around his waist as he plopped her on the kitchen counter, pushing aside appliances with one hand while tugging her hoodie over her head with the other. Her hands fumbled with the zip on his trousers, shoving them down his legs and lifting up her hips to let him pull off her jeans and knickers at the same time. 

They let out concurrent groans when he pushed into her without ceremony, Rose’s back hitting against the cabinets each time he pounded into her roughly. He played with her nipple underneath her bra with one hand and rubbed her clit with the other, panting out filth into her ear, and she bit down on his shoulder with a muffled cry as she came. It only took him three more sharp thrusts to reach his own high, bracing himself with his elbows against the counter to stop himself from becoming a trembling puddle on the kitchen floor. 

“Mm, not that I’m complainin’, but what was that for?” she hummed, nuzzling her nose into his neck. 

“Everything,” he mumbled, one thin hand sliding over her face lovingly. “For saving me, for caring.” Before she could answer, he dove forward and kissed her again, softly this time. “I love you.”

Her stomach growled loudly, destroying the mood; at once they burst into raucous laughter, holding onto each other for leverage. “Well, that was attractive,” she giggled. “Now do you want chips, or do you want to consummate other rooms now that we’ve consummated the kitchen?”

“An impossible question to answer,” he hummed contemplatively. “How about you call them, and then we can consummate the living room while we’re waiting?” 

“Brilliant, you are,” she laughed, pulling up her reaching for the phone.

*

The sounds of excited chattering mixed with the sounds of shuffling feet and camera shutters clicking was almost deafening. Late afternoon sunlight streamed in through the giant windows, making shadows caress the page the Doctor was signing his name on in elegant script underneath the bold letters reading ‘ _Doctor Who; by John Smith_ ’. He shut the book with a gentle thud, handing it back to a starry-eyed woman in a pink jumpsuit that reminded him horribly of his wife’s mother.

“Thank you, _thank you_!” she gushed, clutching the book tightly to her chest.

“You’re welcome,” he said kindly, and she all but melted before hurrying off around the people in line, some of which snickered at her.

The Doctor’s mobile started ringing in his pocket; he gave the man at the front of the line an apologetic look and stood up from his chair at the table, flipping it open and striding between a set of bookshelves for privacy. “‘Lo?”

“‘Lo Mister Bestseller, s’me,” Rose’s voice said on the other end of the line, making an automatic smile break out over his face.

“How’d it go, love?” he asked.

“I’ll tell you after I snog you,” she replied cheekily.

He frowned. “What are you—?” A large amount of applause and overlapping babble started up both in the front of the bookstore and echoing through the phone, and he craned his neck around the bookshelf to see his wife, face red and half-covered by her hands as the line of his fans snapped pictures of her and shoved their books in her direction, shouts for her to sign it as well getting jumbled. He beamed, flicked his mobile shut and pocketed it before stepping into view. She spotted him and mirrored his beam, running as fast as her ballooning stomach would allow and tossing herself into his arms awkwardly. They ignored the sighs and silly ‘ooh’s that the crowd emitted and he swept her back behind the bookshelf, snogging her deeply next to a copy of _Catcher in the Rye_. 

“So,” he said, sliding his hand over her satin-covered belly and the other into her hair, “is everything all right? What’re we having?”

She bit her lip, eyebrows raising and staying silent until he was all but shaking with anticipation. “S’a boy. We’re havin’ a boy.” 

“Boy,” he repeated dumbly, shell-shocked. He ripped his hands away from her so he could shove them through his hair, stumbling despite standing perfectly still. “A boy!” He grabbed her face, smacking a kiss on her mouth before whirling around and shouting to the whole store, “ _We’re having a boy_!” 

The room erupted in congratulate cheers and applause, and Rose laughed as he scooped her into as close a hug as possible, pressing rough kisses on the top of her head. His chest was bursting with happiness as he beamed into her hair, already dreaming of a chubby green-eyed boy topped with golden hair waddling around the house.

He was _free_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Beta: Miral-Romanov**.  
>  A/N: End of Eleven's Forever and More installment :D I had so much fun writing this, you have no clue. This story's title was taken from a quote by Anton Chekhov: "We shall find peace. We shall hear angels, we shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds." Twelve's story will be up soon, starring said Doctor as a Reverend, so there will be clear Catholic Christian references (which is ironic, because I'm an atheist :D). Hope you enjoyed! Happy birthday to my mom!

**Author's Note:**

>  **All my fics can be found on fanfiction.net, teaspoon and tumblr**.


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